May18, 2005

It had come to this. She had had nine years to set things straight, to do what she had wanted to do. Nine years supporting this fiancé of hers while getting little to nothing in return. She had planned the entire wedding, using his money of course, but every little detail was hers – right down to the groomsmen and bridesmaids wearing colors that matched the colors of his football team. Here she was, standing in front of the man that she had grown comfortable with, the man that she had given up everything for, now was not the time to be having second thoughts. Now was not the time that she should consider bolting down the aisle in her couple thousand dollar Vera Wang wedding dress. No, this entire situation was wrong in every possible way.

“Pammy…” he said tracing little, insistent circles on the top of her hands. “Pammy…”

Her eyes darted up towards him and her mouth dropped open a little, forming a small ‘o’. His features were so rough now; she guessed that was what playing football since middle school would do to a man.

“Pammy, it’s your turn to recite the vows…” he said, his eyes urging her on. She looked around at the sea of guests sitting out in their perfect white lawn chairs. She looked behind her at her two bridesmaids who were urging her on silently. She looked over his shoulder at his line of five groomsmen.

“Who on earth has five groomsmen when I only have two bridesmaids?” she wondered.

The grip he had on her hands tightened, she could feel sweat starting to slick across her fingers and she wasn’t sure if it was his sweat or hers.

“Pam,” the minister said leaning closer to her. “Do you need me to recite the vows for you again?”

She choked back tears, “No…I…” she took a deep breath. “I, Pamela…” she choked on her own name and looked up at the man standing with her hands in his. His forehead was furrowed with confusion and concern. He started to mouth out the vows, but she only shook her head slowly.

“Pammy, what’s wrong?” he asked, pulling her hands closer to him.

“I…” she looked out at the sea of people. So many people. So many people who were expecting to see two people get married; so much money had been spent so these people could be here seeing the elaborate spectacle that was taking place underneath the white arch draped with ivy and white lilies with the professional string quartet off to the side.

“Pam,” the minister persisted.

“I…” she could feel her voice shaking; she could feel her entire body shaking. She looked her fiancé in the eyes and frowned as a small tear escaped from her bottom eyelid. Nine years. Nine years she had spent with him. Nine years she had had the chance to get out of it. She had to wait nine years…

“Pammy, please,” he begged, his eyes pleading, his hands tugging against hers.

“I’m sorry,” she said as two more tears fell down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Roy. I just, I can’t.”

Her hands slipped from his and she quickly turned around and ran as a sea of people clamored into action.

May 25, 2005

“God, Pammy!” he practically screamed. “Do you realize how much I spent on the fucking wedding?!” He threw another ceramic plate against the wall. She was glad he owned the place and she was the one leaving. She had no idea how she would pay for all of the dents he was making in the walls of their kitchen and dining room.

“I’ll miss this gorgeous kitchen,” she thought as she woefully ran a hand along the dark granite countertops.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated for the hundredth time.

“What are you even going to do?” he asked as his massive frame cornered her between the refrigerator and garbage compactor.

She shrugged simply, keeping her gaze away from him, “Probably go back to art school or something.” She had no idea how she’d pay for it. She hardly even knew how she was going to afford an apartment in New York City. She’d probably have to move into a slum with the money that she had. She hadn’t had a job since she moved in with Roy eight years ago. He had been the one to bring in all the money playing football.

“Art school?” he bellowed. “Art school?!?” She nodded. “Why, of all things would you go to art school?”

“I like art and I don’t have very many other talents,” she replied. “And it’s not like I can find a whole lot of work with a high school diploma and two years of college.”

“But Pammy…” he sighed and looked down at her as if she was a little child. “I told you when you dropped out…there is no need for you to go to school! Especially art school.”

“Yes,” she said flatly. “You told me. You told me that you would take care of me for the rest of my life. You told me that I’d never have to work another day. You told me that taking art classes was pointless. You told me that art was pointless and that if I really wanted to do something worthwhile with my time that I should marry you right away and we would have little Roy Anderson Juniors.” She crossed her arms and looked him squarely in the eyes this time.

“And what did you do?” he asked.

“I realized that we’re not living in the year 1950 and that I should get out of this god damned relationship!” she cried up at him.

“No, you embarrassed me and yourself in front of all of our friends and family,” he said placing his heavy hands on her shoulders. She sighed. She wondered if he ever listened to a single word that she had ever said.

“I’m leaving,” she said. “Deal with it.” She quickly and nimbly maneuvered her way around his body and picked up a large duffel bag from the floor.

“How are you even going to afford a place to stay?” he asked, hands placed squarely on his hips. “How the hell do you think you’re going to pay for art school of all things?” She looked over her shoulder at him. “New York is expensive, babe.”

“I’ll find a way,” she said quietly as she picked up another duffel sitting in the living room. He followed her slowly as she made her way around the living area of their house – his house.

“Where are you going?” he asked as she went to open the door and picked up a large box sitting next to it. “The wedding was last week; you can’t have a place to stay already.”

“I’m going to go stay with my mom for a little while,” she said quietly.

“Come on, Pammy,” he said as he reached out and stroked softly at her cheek. “You don’t really want to leave me.” She sighed as she kicked open the door with her foot and walked out onto the doorstep. “Babe, we can work things out! I’ll…I’ll…I’ll take you on a really nice trip when the season is over. We can go anywhere you want! Hawaii! The Caribbean!”

“No and no,” she said calmly as she walked around to the back of her old car she had had since high school and popped open the trunk with her knee.

“Europe!” he exclaimed. “You’ve always said you want to go to Paris and see all of the art in the…uh…”

“Louvre,” she finished.

“Right! The Loo…whatever.”

“Louvre,” she repeated.

“Right, right,” he said, his eyes were pleading, he looked like he was about to drop down onto his knees and wrap his arms around her waist like a little child. “I’ll take you anywhere you want. I’ll do anything you want. Anything! Just…don’t leave. We can work these things out, Pammy! We always have!”

“No,” she said as she threw one of the duffel bags into the trunk. She reached up and stroked his stubbly cheek tentatively. “This isn’t something that we can just smooth over. This isn’t something that we can just ‘work out’. Nothing has just ‘worked out’ between the two of us. Not in a long, long time.”

“Take it back,” he growled.

“No,” she said as she threw the second duffel into the trunk.

“But Pammy…”

“Don’t call me Pammy,” she said softly.

“But I’ve always called you Pammy,” he said as he reached out and ran a rough hand along her shoulder.

“I know, and I’ve hated it for about the past five years,” she said as she lifted the box and shoved it into her trunk with the rest of her things. He opened his mouth to say something but the words were lost. He looked down at the empty pavement at Pam’s feet and his eyes traveled back upward and he looked her in the eyes.

“Please,” he said quietly. “Don’t go. Just…stay. Stay another night. We can go get a nice dinner somewhere or…”

“No,” she cut him off. It seemed like she had been saying ‘no’ so much in the past week. She couldn’t wait to just leave once and for all. “Just…no. I’ve made up my mind, Roy. I’m going to my mother’s. I’m not coming back here.”

“But…”

“Roy,” she looked up at him and planted her hands firmly into his shoulders. “I’m sorry, but I just have to leave.” He opened his mouth again and she placed her hand against his lips. “Don’t call me. Give me some time, okay?” She felt his lips move against her hand. “Promise. Promise to give me some time to myself.” He sighed into her palm and her hand fell away.

“Okay,” he said quietly as his eyes went back to the ground.

“Again, I’m sorry,” she said as she stood on her tip toes and planted a small kiss on his cheek. She walked around to the side of her car and opened up the door. “Try not to wreck yourself, please.” He nodded as she slipped into the driver’s seat.

“I love you, Pammy,” he said quietly. She smiled.

“Bye Roy,” she said as she closed the door and started the car.

She backed out of the driveway, trying to fight back tears as she got further and further from the man that she had grown so accustomed to, that she had made a life with. As her eyes traveled around her backseat via the rearview mirror she was fascinated and depressed at how her entire life fit into her old, beat up car. Everything that she had come accustomed to was Roy’s, provided by Roy or paid for by Roy. All she had left was a few duffel bags of clothing, some art supplies, a couple boxes of books, and some knick-knacks she had collected over the years. She had no furniture, she had no home necessities. The weight and pressure from Roy may have been lifted away from her body, but a whole new fear started to settle in her gut. She was really starting over from scratch. The life that she had led since high school was rapidly fading away from her rear view mirror and she had no idea what was laid out on the open road in front of her.

Mid-June 2005

“I think art school is a fabulous idea,” her mother said as they sat sipping at their cups of tea and her mother flipped through a catalog that she had downloaded from the Internet.

“Really? Because Roy…”

“Forget what Roy said,” her mother interrupted. “We all know what Roy said. We all know what Roy thought. I think that art school is a fabulous idea.”

“Really?” her eyes brightened.

“Of course! You’re a brilliant and talented artist!” her mother exclaimed as she flipped through the rest of the book.

“Oh great, because…”

“The only problem is,” Pam’s face immediately dropped down to the table, “well, I don’t quite know how you’re going to afford living in New York City. Getting into the school won’t be too difficult, and if anything you can take out loans for school but…well, honey, you do know how much it costs to rent an apartment in the city…right?”

“Yes,” she said nodding sadly and taking a long sip of her tea.

“I could certainly help you out, and you have some inheritance left from both your grandparents and your father but…”

“You’d be willing to help me pay for an apartment?” she asked, her eyes lighting up again.

“Well, not forever,” her mother replied. “You’d have to find a job, of course. And, well, I’m not going to pay for everything…”

“But you’ll help me out?” she asked.

“You realize that you have to send in a portfolio before they’ll consider you for enrollment, right?” her mother asked, pointing out a page about enrollment information.

“I kind of…I already did,” Pam replied shyly.

“Well, aren’t we prepared?” her mother responded happily. “How did you pay for it?”

“I…” she looked back down at the table and fiddled with her bare fingers, “I may have sold my engagement ring…”

“Pam!”

“What? It’s not like I was going to use it again, it’s not like I had any reason to keep it,” she said indignantly. “And I got a lot of money from it. There were a lot of diamonds in it. It was an expensive ring.”

“But it was your engagement ring.”

“And my engagement in over,” she said flatly. “And I used the money for something good.”

“How many schools did you apply to?” her mother asked, her eyebrow rose speculatively.

“Four,” she replied.

“And this brochure here?” her mother asked holding up the booklet.

“It’s my top choice,” she replied.

“So what did you send to the schools?”

“A couple still life watercolors,” Pam replied shyly. “And a couple of charcoal sketches. I hope they like them.”

“Well, if they have half a brain inside of their heads, I can’t imagine why they would turn you down,” her mother responded.

“Art schools can be really tough though, mom,” she said as she ran her finger absentmindedly around the rim of her cup. “I mean, they’re really competitive. Most schools really look for the absolute best candidates that they can find.”

“And what makes you think that you’re not the best candidate?” her mother asked as she pushed the brochure back towards Pam.

“Well…I’ve never exactly had the most formal training,” Pam responded, a twinge of sadness in her voice. “I haven’t taken an art class in…six or seven years?”

“So?”

“There are people that are applying to these schools who are fresh out of specialized art schools that are vying for the same acceptance that I am!” she sighed. “I want this so badly, mom, I really, really do.”

“Then you just have to keep trying,” her mother reached out across the table and covered her daughter’s hand with her own. “There are people who have to work years for their talent and there are people who are born with it. You, my dear, you are born with it.” Pam smiled weakly. “And you know what? You may be rejected a couple of times. You may not get into your first choice. You may have to apply to other schools, you may have to try someplace other than New York. But believe me; if this is what you want, you need to go after it. You need to never, ever give up.”

“Thanks, mom,” she said as she pulled her hand away from her mother’s and took another long sip of tea.

“So when do you think that you’ll hear back from a school?” Pam shrugged.

“They usually say that it can take anywhere from two weeks to two months,” Pam said. “I figure if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to get into a school by fall.”

“Well then,” her mother said with a smile on her face. “It looks like my lovely daughter is going to be back for a while.” She stood up and walked over to where Pam sat and placed a loving kiss on the top of her head.

“I can stay here until September?” Pam asked.

“You can stay as long as you need to,” her mother replied. “It’s not like there’s anyone else living here right now. I’ll enjoy the company.” Pam smiled. “And in the meantime, you can keep your eye out for apartments that are available in New York City.”

“Thanks, mom,” she said as she finished off the rest of her tea. “For everything. For absolutely everything.”

“It’s the least I can do.”

Mid-July 2005

She was sitting out on her old, childhood swing set when it happened. The clouds were rolling in over the horizon and she was sketching the stormy summer day as it happened. She had already been turned down to two of the schools she sent portfolios to and she was starting to feel increasingly pessimistic about the last two since they were notoriously the most difficult of the four.

The past month and a half, she had spent the days inside of her mother’s house, anxiously awaiting the mailman to come by, hoping that she would receive a letter of good news from someone – from anyone, really. She had underestimated how lonely her life would be without Roy. She felt lost not being asked to go along to a football charity event, or an awards program of some sort every couple of weeks. She could have never imagined her daily life void of spending her time doing things that involved Roy’s football team or something else of that nature. Instead, her days now were filled with sitting on her mother’s old sofa and watching re-runs of old sitcoms like Married with Children and Roseanne and waiting for an acceptance letter.

She had not really felt depressed since breaking it off with her fiancé, she just felt…empty. He had been a part of her life for so long and now what? She felt like she was a high school senior all over again at age twenty six. She was waiting to be accepted to a school of higher education, she was secretly dreading running into Roy – the high school sweetheart – again, and every day that passed on that she was living with her mother – even though she loved her mother – she was hoping that she would find a way out and into a new life.

It was five thirty in the afternoon and she heard a loud clap of thunder as her mother called her from the back porch. She dropped a stick of charcoal and turned around to see her mother standing in the doorway waving a large manila envelope in her hand.

“Where is it from?” she asked hopefully as she stood up and tucked her sketchbook under her arm.

“NYU,” her mother replied holding the envelope in front of her.

“Really?” she asked as she started walking towards the door as a couple of fat raindrops started to fall from the sky. She quickly grabbed the envelope from her mother as she ducked into the house as the rain started to fall in torrents.

She rushed into the living room and sat down on the sofa and threw the unopened envelope onto the coffee table.

“Are you going to open it?” her mother asked as she sat down next to Pam.

“I…I don’t want to,” Pam replied nervously.

“Why not?”

“What if I’m not accepted?”

“What if you are?”

“This is a great program, mom! I’ve already been turned down from the others…”

“You have one other that you’re still waiting to hear from, so if this turns you down, there’s still one more out there,” her mother coaxed.

“But…this…” she pointed to the envelope.

“Should I open it?” Pam nodded furiously. Her mother grabbed the envelope off of the table and slowly ran her finger under the sealed edge.

“Wait…” Pam stopped her. She took a deep breath. “No, keep going.”

Her mother pulled out the letter and read it over slowly.

“What does it say?” Pam asked anxiously, unable to look at the papers in her mother’s hand, unable to look anywhere but down in her lap.

“I think…” her mother read on and stopped.

“You think what?” Pam asked, her head darting towards her mother. “What do you think? What does it say?” Her knees bounced up and down anxiously. A wide smile crossed her mother’s face.

“You’re in,” she said.

“I’m in?” Pam asked in disbelief.

“You’re in.” Pam squealed in excitement and jumped up off of the couch, pulling her mother up with her and wrapping her in a tight embrace.

“You’re kidding, right?” she yanked the papers away from her mother’s hands and looked over them carefully. “Holy…” a huge smile spread across her face and she clutched the papers close to her chest. “I can’t believe it!” She pulled her mother into another tight embrace and squealed against her shoulder as she tried to prevent tears of joy from streaming down her cheeks.

“Congratulations!”

“I can’t believe this,” Pam said with excitement. “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe this. I am going to New York. I, Pam Beesly, I am going to New York. I am moving to New York. I’m going to be an artist! I’m going to be like…uh…I’m going to be an artist! In New York!” She hugged her mother again.

“I think this is cause for a celebration,” her mother said as she rushed into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of wine from the counter.

“Definitely!” Pam exclaimed as she skipped happily around the kitchen. She felt like she was 17 again and getting accepted to college. She felt like she was 21 again and getting proposed to by Roy. She felt excited, she felt hopeful and for the first time in months, years even. Maybe finally, finally she was getting exactly what she wanted.

Mid-October 2005

She sat on her bed and watched the cold autumn rain falling down the glass window panes of her apartment. She was glad that she didn’t have to work today; she was glad that she didn’t have to go to class. She was perfectly happy to stay inside and just watch the rain fall from her bed. She enjoyed days like these. She couldn’t remember when she had been able to spend an entire Sunday sitting in a window watching the rain when she had lived in Pennsylvania. Her Sundays with Roy had usually been filled with watching football or basketball while he invited too many friends over and she ended up playing the typical domestic housewife role of making nachos or pizza and serving everyone beer.

She wondered how Roy was doing back in Pennsylvania. She had made a desperate attempt to completely cut ties with him. She didn’t want to feel his pull on her anymore and she didn’t want to feel tricked into going back to him. The entire summer he would call her at least twice a week, sometimes everyday. She rarely ever returned his phone calls and she avoided speaking to him. After she moved to New York, she heard from him a lot less, but every once in a while after leaving class; she would notice a new voicemail message from him. She would listen to his voice without much interest and send him an e-mail a few days later. She was glad that he hadn’t hurt himself or anyone else. The greatest fear she had felt in her heart immediately after leaving was the phone call that she might receive from him from prison. She was endlessly thankful it never came.

**

Her mother helped her move to New York City in the middle of August during a horrendous heat wave. The two of them had spent most of July constantly perusing the classified ads and apartment listing for New York City. Pam had become dismayed when so many of the apartments listed were well over $1,000 a month for a small one bedroom. She had no idea how she would manage to pay for that, school tuition, art supplies, food, and everything else that she would need to furnish an apartment.

The first week in August, Pam finally caught a break. While searching through the apartment listings on the internet, she found several listings for open studio apartments for under $1,000 a month, located between three and five miles away from where she would be taking most of her art classes. She immediately made plans for that weekend to go and visit the city to check out three different apartments.

The first apartment she looked at was located directly above an Indian restaurant. The walls reeked of curry and even in the middle of the day, she could hear people below her feet arguing in the kitchen. If that hadn’t been bad enough, all of the windows in the place faced brick walls of neighboring buildings and she was positive that the entire living space was no larger than the master bedroom that she had shared with Roy.

The second apartment that she made an appointment to look at was a lovely location. However, although it had its ups and some major downs. As she walked around, the hardwood floor squeaked horribly and when she started walking along the walls she was immediately frightened by the neighbor banging and screaming against the wall she figured she’d put a bed.

“Don’t worry about him, he goes to sleep early,” the landlord had said when he saw Pam’s frightened expression.

“Are the walls really this thin?” she had asked and her answer was a casual shrug.

The third apartment had been the apartment she decided on. The landlord was a pleasant older woman who lived below the apartment she was looking at. It was a three story row of buildings and the apartment was located directly between a bakery and flower shop. She smiled as she walked up the staircase, basking in the warm scent of fresh baked bread and cinnamon. The apartment was a pleasant third story room with a couple of tall built-in shelving units. The room was large enough for a bed, a small kitchen table and maybe a small couch with a little coffee table with enough open space in the middle for Pam to paint and draw. The walls were thick and there was a hush in the air as she wandered around the empty space. What really sold her on the location in the end was the huge row of windows along where she figured she’d put a bed. When she looked out the window she had smiled and clapped her hands with glee because the apartment looked out over the street and a small city park with large oak trees and a small swing set, slide and merry-go-round for children.

“I’ll take it,” she immediately said, turning around to the woman standing in the door, clasping her hands to her chest.

“Really?” the woman asked with her eyes wide with surprise.

“Yes, yes,” Pam replied. “A hundred times yes!”

“Wow…” the woman said as she continued to look at Pam with shock. “I can’t believe it. I just listed this place the other day!”

The two women had immediately gone down to the large two bedroom apartment the landlord lived in – the smell of cookies following them through the halls – and Pam signed a lease without hesitation.

**

“I love these windows,” Pam said quietly to herself as her finger followed a fat droplet of water slowly tricking down the pane of glass in front of her eyes.

In the past couple of weeks, the vibrant colors of the oak trees in the park had been a perfect subject for her watercolors. Children playing on the merry-go-round and slipping down the slide had been inspiration for lively black and white charcoal drawings. She wondered how she had become so fortunate to find the perfect spot for an aspiring artist like herself.

**

“Mom, I really do not need this much furniture,” she had repeated as her mother gathered up things from the house for Pam to take for her move.

“Of course you do, honey!” her mother had exclaimed as she dragged up the large panel of the top of a table from the basement.

“Mom,” Pam said flatly. “This table will take up my entire living room area. I live in a studio apartment. Seriously, the entire place is probably the size of our living room.”

“Oh,” her mother said as her face fell slightly.

“I just need a little table, a couple of little chairs, a small couch – like maybe that futon that’s been in the basement since Kate graduated from college, and maybe a couple of little tables to make up an end table or a coffee table.”

“But this is going to be your home, Pam.”

“And my home is tiny, mom.” She looked out towards her mother’s car, a full size mattress strapped to the roof and some duffel bags piled up in the back seat. “I’m looking for simplicity, here.”

Her mother drove her to New York City, belongings packed securely in the back of her car. She had read and heard from a lot of people there was no need to bring her car with her to a big city like New York, so she left it behind with her mother.

Pam moved into her apartment with record speed. She forgot what it had been like to live so simply. The home she had shared with Roy in the suburbs had been so elaborate, moving in had been such an ordeal because every piece of furniture had to be arranged in just the right way and they both had to agree on where everything went. In this small studio apartment, Pam only had a couple pieces of furniture; she only had the most basic items to start out with. Packing things away was not difficult or tedious. Arranging her furniture the way that she wanted was so liberating. She wanted her bed against the windows and her sofa facing the kitchen, a small television in the corner so she could watch TV if she was sitting on the couch, lying in bed or making herself dinner; and she could, she could do what she wanted.

“Honey, you hardly have any kitchen utensils…” her mother said as she unpacked a box of kitchen necessities.

“I know,” she said as she hung up a string of curtains along the windows, “but I have everything that I need, I don’t need anymore.”

“Well, if you change your mind, I have a ton of pots and pans at home that I never use, I can bring them to you.”

Pam nodded quietly as she watched a man in a business suit buy a bouquet of flowers from the shop on the corner.

“Maybe I’ll get flowers like that from someone like that…” she thought to herself as she smiled.

**

She wondered what the area would be like in the winter. She loved moving in during the peak of the summer months – even if it had been unbearably hot the first couple of weeks. She was able to see all of the amazing neighborhood dynamics. She had watched people filing in and out of the bakery throughout the day, she had watched men and women buying flowers, sometimes just single rose, sometimes enormous bouquets that she both envied and despised. She loved that it was getting close to Halloween, but the neighborhood had died down a bit since the warmer days of the past couple of months. She missed seeing all of the children running around the little park daily after school was out, sure they were still there but not nearly in the numbers that they had been before and they didn’t stay nearly as long as they used to.

Fewer people out and about in the neighborhood made her feel safer too. Granted, her boss still insisted on walking her home every evening because she wasn’t a “true New Yorker” and he had provided her with pepper spray after their first day of working together. She was grateful that her boss was so personable, had a lot of care and concern for his employee’s well-being. However, he was still a little odd.

**

“Hi, I’m Pam Beesly, I’m here for the interview,” she said shaking the hand of the man in the glasses that seemed to be a decade out of style.

“Pam,” he said, please sit. She sat on a barstool next to him. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“No, I’m fine, thanks,” she said politely as she folded her hands in her lap. She hoped she didn’t blow this interview. It was just for a waitress position, but still. She needed the money and she couldn’t think of many other things she would be good at other than this. After all, she had been waiting on Roy for the past nine years.

“I am Dwight Schrute, the owner of this here restaurant establishment,” he said, with maybe a little too much formality.

“Nice to meet you,” she said with a courteous nod.

“So Pam, what makes you think that you can be a waitress?” he asked, her brow furrowed slightly at the odd question.

“I’ve had a couple of waitress jobs in the past,” she replied slowly. “And I figure that I’ve been waiting on my ex-fiancé for the past nine years so…”

“Ex-fiancé?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she replied as she laughed nervously. “Made it to the wedding, but couldn’t go any further.” Dwight nodded thoughtfully.

“So are you new to the city?” he asked. She nodded.

“Just moved in about a week ago,” she replied.

“What brings you here?” he asked.

“Art school,” she replied.

“Oh, so you’re an artist?” he asked. She nodded. “Question, can you paint vegetables or…animals?”

“I think that I can paint or draw just about anything that you set down in front of me,” she said with a cautious look around her. Was he serious? He nodded thoughtfully.

“Question, do you like beets?” he asked. Her eyes widened and she tried to stifle a giggle as she looked into his stoic face.

“I…I guess?” she replied softly.

“Good, because we here at The Golden Beet are famous for our borscht,” he announced proudly.

“Really?” Pam asked with a speculative eyebrow raise. She watched as a small petite blonde walked past her with a tray full of small salads and shook her head ‘no’.

“Absolutely,” he replied. “Another question…do you have strong arms?”

“I guess,” she said as she rubbed her bicep tentatively.

“Yes…it looks like you do,” he said thoughtfully. “How are you around people who are or may act better than you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Businessmen, businesswomen, diplomats, U.N. speakers,” he listed.

“Do you honestly have diplomats and U.N. speakers come in here on a regular basis?”

“No, but we always like to be prepared,” he said. “We do have quite a few business people come in though. We offer some good lunch and dinner specials that they like to take advantage of.” Pam nodded. “We like to pride ourselves on fast service. Can you serve fast?”

“I…sure,” she stammered.

“Good,” he kept nodding thoughtfully. “Pam, stand up for me.”

“Oh, okay,” she said as she pushed herself away from the bar and stood up.

“Nice…turn around,” he said. She turned around slowly, wondering what he was looking for and wondering if he was always this strange of a man. “Good form. I think you’d make an excellent waitress.”

“Really?” she asked with an enthusiastic smile on her face finally.

“Certainly,” he replied. “When are you free to work?”

“As soon as you want me to start!” she exclaimed happily.

“When are your classes?” he asked.

“Classes…” she replied slowly. “Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.”

“What times?” he asked.

“Noon until six, I think,” she replied. He nodded.

“I’ll hire you for…” he thought and his fingers flicked as he counted in his mind. “Thirty hours a week. You’re free on weekends, right?” She nodded. “Great. Is thirty hours okay with you?” Pam nodded enthusiastically.

“Absolutely,” she said with a smile.

“Great. Now, you’ll need to dress in a black or brown skirt or pants and a dark red top…you know, the beets.”

“Right…” she said slowly.

“If you don’t have anything or if you can’t afford anything, I’m willing to buy you one outfit. But only one.”

“Really?”

“I like to treat my employees with utmost respect,” he said. “Not many restaurant managers are as nice as I am.”

“That’s…”

“Where do you live?” he interrupted.

“Um…about a mile and a half east…”

“I will walk you home the nights you work late,” he interrupted.

“Oh, no, Dwight, that’s not…”

“Absolutely necessary,” he said quickly. “A young, pretty girl like you, new to the city needs all the protection that she can get.”

“But I think the neighborhood is pretty…”

“I will walk you home,” he said with finality.

“Oh…okay,” she said with a bit of uncertainty wavering in her voice.

“Don’t worry, he’ll keep you safe,” the petite blonde said quietly as she passed by the two of them again. Pam watched as Dwight winked at her and she skittered back into the kitchen.

**

She was so grateful for that job, though she enjoyed days like today that she could take off and do whatever she wanted. It paid pretty much the same as any other waitress job in New York City, but she was able to rake in hundreds of dollars in tips from generous businesspeople. Dwight hadn’t been lying when he told her that there were a lot of professional people that came in for food and they all seemed to respond amazingly to her service.

There was one particular group of businessmen that she really liked. They came in every Monday and Friday for lunch, right in the middle of her shift and always sat at one of the tables that she waitressed at. She had even seen them a couple of Saturday evenings that she worked. They always sat in the same exact spot, and they always tipped her far better than she could ever dream of. She had never been able to catch what business they were in, or even all of their names. She knew the loud, boisterous one was Michael, but that was only because the other two were always insistently telling him to keep his voice down.

The three men were the entire reason she looked forward to Mondays. When the restaurant wasn’t busy, she would sit and talk with them for a little while. When the restaurant was really busy, the tallest would always slink back to the bathrooms after he was done eating and purposefully stop and tell Pam what a wonderful job she did or how great the food was as he passed by the swinging doors of the kitchen where she was always standing.

“Why don’t I know his name?” she asked against the glass as her hand swept across the window pane. She sighed with a smile. “I suppose I have a goal for tomorrow.”

January 2006

She made it through the holidays; she made it through the New Year. She felt so incredibly lonely. It was odd; she had promised herself back in October that she would get the names of the businessman who always came to The Golden Beet on their Monday and Friday lunch breaks. She promised herself up and down. It was her goal. Learn their names, maybe become their friends even if they were successful businessmen and she was a college student with a tiny studio apartment. She hadn’t seen them again.

Angela, the petite, blonde waitress had told Pam that they started coming into the restaurant on Tuesday and Thursdays during lunch – the two days of the week that Pam did not work the lunch shift. She felt a little crushed inside. She wanted to know them. She wanted more friends that weren’t Angela or the weird, kind-of friendship that she had with Dwight.

Christmas had been depressing and for the first time in her life she started to realize why there were so many suicides during the holiday season – especially in New York. Every day that she woke up during December, her senses were assaulted by the scents of Christmas baked goods wafting up from the bakery. Every time she stepped outside of her apartment to go to work, to go to school, to go shopping for anything she was bombarded by Christmas music or Salvation Army bell ringers. Something that reminded her of how alone she was during this time of the year.

She went home for a long weekend of Christmas so she could spend it with her mother and the rest of her extended family. She was surprised when she had arrived at her mother’s home and there was a small box under her mother’s Christmas tree addressed to Pam from Roy. She had been flattered and disgusted when she realized that he had bought her a ridiculously expensive gold and diamond necklace that she knew she’d never wear. She wanted to send it back to him; she didn’t want to accept it. Instead of taking it herself, she brought it to a jewelry shop when she returned to New York City and received a couple thousand dollars for it. When she received the money, she wondered how much he had actually spent on it.

Being in New York City during New Years had been completely insane. Dwight had invited Pam and all of the rest of the employees at the restaurant to Times Square to watch the ball drop. She was a little wary about the notion at first; she didn’t really like to be around huge crowds of people. She made the best out of the situation though and decided that since it was her first New Years in New York City that she might as well make the best of it.

She felt lost in the sea of people surrounding her as people buzzed with excitement for the New Year to come. She felt alone. She had a feeling as she looked over at Dwight and Angela that they had something going on between the two of them. It was only confirmed when the ball hit its base and everyone within sight started kissing anyone they were near – including her two co-workers. She pushed away a man standing near her making kissy faces at her when he clearly had an arm around his girlfriend. She wondered what Roy was doing back at home in Pennsylvania. In the past, the two of them had thrown elaborate New Years Eve parties and she had always had someone to kiss at midnight. Now her options were the drunken man with a girlfriend or…no one. She opted for no one.

**

She was sitting in the front window of The Golden Beet. Her classes for the new semester would start up in a couple of days and she relished the little bit of free time that she had to sit and doodle whatever she wanted before she was bombarded with assignments from her professors.

She wasn’t able to do a whole lot – art-wise – at work. During her breaks she would sneak off to an emptier part of the restaurant and spend her free time doing what she loved the most. She preferred watercolors above any other medium, but a restaurant was not the best place to be working with her slightly toxic paints, so while at The Golden Beet, during her break time she would draw with graphite or charcoal.

The bell to signal a patron jingled but Pam didn’t look up. Kelly or Angela would help them out. This was her lunch break, after this she was on the clock until late that night. She was going to take full advantage of the free time.

“So, you’re an artist?” a voice asked. Pam jumped and looked up into his face.

“Hi,” she said, suddenly feeling breathless.

“Hey,” he said with a generous smile on his face. “So you’re an artist?”

“Oh,” she said, snapping back to his question. “Yeah. Well, kind of.”

“It looks like you’re making art right there,” he said pointing down to her sketchbook.

“Oh, this is nothing,” she said as she felt a flush rise through her cheeks. “I’m just doodling the snow and frost in the panes of glass here.” She tapped on the window softly with her knuckle.

“Can I sit here?” he asked, pointing to the empty seat across from her.

“Um…” she stammered. “Well…this area usually isn’t…and…”

“Oh,” he said looking around.

“I mean, you can,” she said. “If you really want to…but I don’t think that Kelly or Angela will be too happy with me if I sit you here.”

“How come?” he asked.

“Well…it’s just that, this is one of my tables, and I’m kind of on my lunch break right now,” she said with a half-smile.

“Well…” he looked around at the mostly empty restaurant. “Maybe we can move to another table and I can eat lunch with you.” Pam fought the smile spreading across her face and nodded as she closed her sketchbook and stood up.

“Where do you want to sit?” she asked.

“How about…” he looked around, “we can’t sit here?”

“Not without Angela having a fit over order and organization and fairness,” she said with a smile.

“Okay,” he said, returning her smile. “Where can we sit that we won’t get a stern lecture from a little blonde woman?”

“Over there,” she said pointing to a booth along the brick wall near the door.

“Looks good to me,” he said as she stepped ahead of him to notify Angela that she wasn’t eating lunch alone today.

“So,” she said as she slid into the black seat, “where have you been?”

“Where have I been?” he asked. “Where have you been?”

“I’ve been working here the entire time,” she replied.

“Oh, that’s right,” he said with a teasing smile on his face. “I started coming here different days of the week and you disappeared.” She laughed slightly and pushed her sketchbook over to the side of the table.

“You shouldn’t have messed with a good thing,” she said with a simple shoulder shrug and he laughed.

“So, I’m really sorry,” he said, his face straightening out a bit. “This is going to sound really, really horrible, but…” he bit his lower lip. “I forgot your name.” She laughed.

“I’m Pam,” she said with a grin. “And I am sorry, but I never, ever caught your name before.”

“You didn’t?” he asked in disbelief, she shook her head ‘no’. “Wow. And here I thought I was bad. You don’t even know my name!”

“Well!” she persisted. “What’s your name, mysterious stranger?”

“I’m Jim,” he said as he stretched his arm across the table for a handshake.

“Hi, Jim,” she said as she took his hand in hers and shook earnestly.

“So, you’re some kind of artist, are you?” he asked.

“Some kind,” she replied.

“And you’re working in a restaurant? Why aren’t you working in a museum or an art gallery or something?” he asked. She laughed.

“I’m just an art student,” she replied. “I go to NYU.”

“Oh really?” he asked. “Are you a graduate student?” She looked at him inquisitively. “I mean, don’t take this the wrong way but you seem to be about my age…” She shook her head.

“I’m an undergrad,” she said softly. “I dropped out of college when I was a sophomore to be with my fiancé…” she looked up at him and his face seemed to fall slightly. “Sorry, ex-fiancé.” She corrected herself. “And I really wanted to go back to school and really learn some art, so here I am.”

“What an uplifting story.”

“Kind of. Only kind of.”

“Pam, I know what you’re having,” Angela said as she walked up to the table and interrupted the two of them. “But Jim, I need to know what you want…we haven’t seen you in here lately.”

“You know his name?” Pam asked.

“I know all the regulars names,” Angela replied smugly.

“Angela, I’m going to have my usual sandwich and a cup of coffee – black,” he said smoothly.

“Great,” she said, “I’ll be back out in a bit.” She walked back to the kitchen, turning her head ever-so slightly before she slipped through the double doors.

“So just how long have you been coming here?” Pam asked, turning her attention back towards Jim.

“A year, two, maybe, I don’t know,” he replied. “It’s kind of an off and on thing, depending on who works when we come in for our lunch breaks. Also depending on who gets hired and who gets fired.

“Oh?”

“Not many people get fired,” Jim said nonchalantly, “unless they really do a bad job. Dwight is pretty calm with all of his employees. Usually people quit when they’ve had too much of him.” Pam nodded.

“So really, where have you been?” she asked, leaning her elbows on the table.

“Well, we started coming in on Tuesdays and Thursdays around the end of October, because Michael would skip too many Fridays,” he said casually, “and then towards the end of December, I went on my Christmas vacation.”

“Christmas vacation?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he replied, “I spend most of my Christmases in the Bahamas.” Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open slightly. His fancy business suits and generous tips apparently weren’t lying.

“The Bahamas?” she asked in what was more of a gasp than anything else.

“Sure,” he said, “I’m not particularly fond of New York City around Christmas. People get a lot meaner. I get really tired of hearing Jingle Bells and other Christmas music over and over and over, by the 18th I’ve just about had enough and have to flee…”

“Wow,” she said quietly. “I’ve never even gone outside of this small area of the Northeast United States.”

“Oh,” his voice changed, “I’m sorry…” he laughed nervously. “I must have just sounded like the most pompous ass.” She smiled a little. “Wow, I’m sorry Pam. I’m totally not…”

“Not what?”

“Pompous,” he said. “At least I don’t think I am.”

“I don’t think you are,” she said earnestly. “I mean, I don’t know you that well, but…” she smiled. “You’re not pompous. If you were, you probably wouldn’t be having lunch with a waitress who also happens to be an art student.”

“And I’ll pay for you too, if you want me to,” he said with a wink.

“Wow!” maybe it was a little overenthusiastic, but no one had so much as offered to buy her a meal since she had moved to the city. “Well, Jim. I think you now have a friend for life.” He laughed. “You’ve fed the kitten. Now I’m going to follow you home.” He laughed again as Angela set down a cup of coffee in front of him and shot a disapproving glare at Pam.

“So when are you working this semester?” he asked. “Or rather, when do you have classes, so I know when you’re not working?”

“I have classes all day on Mondays and all morning on Wednesdays,” she said with a smile. “The only day I’m not working from now until April is Mondays.”

“Great,” he said. “I’ll try and convince Michael and Ryan that we need to hold our lunch meetings on Tuesdays from now on.”

“Wonderful,” she said. She felt like a little girl inside. She was jumping up and down with excitement. And all she had needed to know was his name but somehow she felt like she had received a lot more.

Valentines Day 2006

Pam smiled when the three businessmen walked in at exactly 12:30 for their lunches. Finally, something to get her mind off of the depressing nature of the romantic holiday. Her entire morning had been a barrage of questions from Kelly ranging from what she thought she was going to do this evening, what she wanted to do this evening, who her “Valentine” was, who she wishes her “Valentine” was, what she had done in the past for Valentines Day and so on and so forth. She was ready for the welcome break that Michael, Ryan and Jim presented her with.

“Ohmigod Pam!” Kelly tugged on Pam’s arm a couple of times as she watched them walk into the restaurant.

“Ohmigod Kelly!” she repeated, mimicking Kelly perfectly.

“Ohmigod. It’s Ryan. Ohmigod,” Kelly squealed quietly against the back of Pam as she darted behind her friend to watch Ryan enter without him seeing her.

“So Kelly…” Pam turned around and placed her hands on Kelly’s shoulders. “What’s up?”

“Can you wait their table today, Pam?” she begged. “Please oh please oh please?”

“It’s your table they’re sitting at,” Pam said quietly.

“I know, but it’s just…” her eyes darted back and forth. “Well, Ryan and I totally went out for dinner last night. A nice dinner, Pam. A really nice dinner. And then afterwards, I invited him back to my place because I really didn’t want the night to end, you know? And he came over and…Pam…”

“And what,” Pam said with an exaggerated deep breath and fake anticipation for what Kelly was about to say.

“We totally made out,” Kelly gushed. Pam looked over her shoulder as Ryan shot a glance at the two of them. Pam bit her tongue and avoided asking Kelly whether or not he was going to be taking her to the prom, or if they were “going steady” now and simply stifled a laugh.

“So you want me to wait on their table, even though it’s clearly yours, and you’re clearly going to miss out on a lot of money here,” Pam said plainly. Kelly nodded. “Okay.” She smoothed her skirt over her legs and walked out to the table the three men were sitting at.

“Hello,” she said with a cheery smile.

“Pam-a-lama-ding-dong,” Michael said with a lot of cheer in his voice. “How are you doing this fine day of our Saint Valentines?”

“Uh…” she stammered at the odd phrasing of the question. “I’m fine, thank you Michael.”

“Wonderful!” he exclaimed loudly. “I suspect that you have a sexy date all lined up for this evening?” Pam blushed slightly and lowered her head a little.

“No Michael, I do not,” she said quietly. “Can I get you three anything to drink today?”

“I!” Michael opened his mouth and spoke before the other two could get a word out. “I will have a scotch on the rocks.”

“Michael, we have to be back at the office in an hour,” Ryan said calmly.

“And I will have you, my dear Pam, make the drink,” Michael finished.

“Why me?” Pam asked.

“Because you’re always a little more generous than Angela,” Michael said as he looked over Jim’s shoulder at Angela taking an order from another table.

“You know, Dwight really isn’t a big fan of the waitresses getting the alcoholic drinks,” Pam said truthfully. He allowed it during lunch time, but it didn’t mean that he liked the idea of a waitress doing a bartender’s job.

“Then Dwight can go to hell because I want my little Pammy serving up my scotch on the rocks,” Michael said. Pam cringed at Michael calling her ‘Pammy’ and when she shot a glance across the table at Jim, he smiled at her and rolled his eyes ever-so-slightly, making her feel a little happier.

“Then it’s a scotch on the rocks,” she said with a forced smile. “What about you two?” She shot a glance to both Ryan and Jim.

“Coffee,” Ryan said burying his face in his menu.

“Coffee,” Jim said with an earnest smile.

“I’ll be right back then,” she said and walked behind the bar.

“Ohmigod Pam,” Kelly said jumping up from behind where she stood pouring scotch into a short glass. “Did he say anything about me? Did he? Did he?”

“Who? Ryan?” Pam asked. Kelly nodded vigorously. “He said nothing. Just that he wanted coffee.”

“Can I bring it to him? Can I? Can I?” Kelly asked, Pam laughed at how much Kelly could remind her of her young cousins sometimes.

“Go ahead,” Pam said waving her off. “As long as you get Jim a cup too.”

She laughed briefly as Kelly skipped away to the coffee machine, but her laughter quickly turned to a feeling of sadness as she looked out the window and saw a businessman walking down the street with an enormous bouquet of roses.

She had never been a big fan of Valentines Day in the past. Roy always went all out for the holiday though. He had a way of surprising her with the most bizarre and most beautiful flower arrangements and gift baskets. Last year for the holiday, he had arrived home late in the evening from football practice, but he had surprised Pam with two dozen roses, a teddy bear made entirely of chocolate and what he had promised her to be “the best sex of her life”. Unfortunately, he had fallen asleep on the couch that night watching ESPN, and Pam ended up in bed with a stomach ache for the next week from all of the chocolate. The huge bouquet or roses had been nice though.

This year, she had nothing to look forward to. No plans for the evening, class the next morning. She had working all day to look forward to; seeing happy couples dining in the restaurant for a pleasant evening out together. And she was stuck alone.

“I’m just saying, if we place the billboard in Times Square, we’ll get a lot more business is all,” Jim said as Pam returned to the table with Michael’s scotch on the rocks. “Don’t you agree, Pam?”

“What?” Pam asked, trying to think about what they were just talking about. “I didn’t hear the conversation.”

“Michael thinks that we should place a bunch of billboards around the city for this company we’re currently sponsoring,” Jim explained. “But I think we should just save our money and put up one in Times Square.”

“Does it cost a lot of money to put something up in Times Square?” Pam asked, though she really had no idea.

“She has a point, Jim,” Michael said pointing towards her and smiling as she set the glass of amber liquid in front of him.

“On the other hand,” Pam said thoughtfully, “Times Square advertises to the tourists.”

“That’s true too,” Jim said with a grin.

“But honestly, I have no idea,” Pam said with a shrug. “I’m just here to take your food orders.”

“I’ll have my usual,” Jim said. She smiled and nodded towards Ryan.

“Oh…I don’t know…” Ryan said as his eyes darted around the pages of his menu. “I’ll just have the turkey club. No fries and a salad.” Pam nodded and dreaded looking over at Michael, but forced herself to make eye contact and smile.

“Michael?” she asked.

“I want a steak,” he replied.

“A steak?” she asked.

“Yes, I want a steak,” he repeated.

“But we don’t usually serve steaks for lunch…”

“Give the man what he wants, Pam!” Dwight called from the kitchen. Pam jumped slightly at the sound of Dwight’s voice and nodded at Michael.

“A steak it is,” she said. “Anything with that?”

“Some fries,” he said with a childlike grin on his face.

“A steak and fries,” she said with a nod, “just for you, Michael.”

She placed their order and went back behind the bar to sit while she scanned over the tables she was waiting on. Her eyes always casually drifted back to the three businessmen who were such devoted regulars though.

It had been a mystery to her the first several months working at The Golden Beet trying to figure out what line of work the men were in. They were evidently wealthy, they always spoke about business during lunch – though she did a magnificent job of not eavesdropping on their conversations – and they were extremely friendly. At first she had thought that they were stock brokers working on Wall Street, and she went with that idea for a while. There was just something about them, the way they carried themselves, the way they acted around her and the other employees at the restaurant. The notion of them being stock brokers just didn’t quite work.

**

“Kelly,” Pam asked, pulling her aside. “What do they do?”

“Who?” Kelly asked looking around the restaurant. It was a busy day, there were a lot of people in for lunch and really, Pam could have been talking about anyone.

“Those three,” Pam said pointing discreetly. “Michael, Jim and Ryan.”

“You don’t know?” Kelly asked with wide eyes.

“I have no idea,” Pam replied, “I’ve been waiting on them for the past…five months? And I kind of want to know.”

“Wow,” she giggled. “You must be completely oblivious.”

“Just tell me what they do, Kelly,” Pam said tapping her foot impatiently.

“My god, Pam!” Kelly exclaimed quietly, so the three men sitting nearby wouldn’t hear. “They only work for like, the biggest advertising company in New York City.”

“Advertising?” Pam asked. Of course, it made so much sense. They were always talking about different locations around the city and around the Northeast.

“Sure!” Kelly replied. “I would bet you ten dollars that you saw at least two advertisements for at least one of the companies they sponsor on your way here today.”

“Who do they advertise for?” Pam asked, curious.

“Almost every large New York City charity you’ve ever heard of,” Kelly replied. “New York City’s public transportation system, several restaurants…”

“Ours?” Pam asked.

“Not ours,” Kelly replied. “Dwight doesn’t have that kind of money. This is more of a local favorite eatery anyway.”

“What else do they advertise for?” Pam asked quietly.

“I think they work with a couple of car companies…” Kelly replied thoughtfully. “Maybe Volkswagen? Then again, I might just be thinking that because Ryan has the cutest VW.” Pam nodded.

“Impressive,” she said.

“They’re really amazing, Pam,” Kelly said quietly, turning away when Jim looked over towards the two of them. “Really amazing.”

**

Pam darted back into the kitchen with dirty plates in her hands and dumped them into the tray next to the dishwasher.

“Pam, how late are you working today?” Dwight asked as she headed back towards the double doors.

“Seven o’clock,” she replied as she swung the door open, looking back over her shoulder and ran squarely into a hard body in front of her.

“Whoa! Whoa!” Jim exclaimed, hands up as he backed up against the wall quickly.

“Oh shit!” Pam exclaimed, covering her mouth quickly, realizing that she had just made a full frontal collision with him.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I wanted to talk to you anyway.”

“Oh?” she asked with a smile on her face, expecting the usual post-lunch, ‘You did a great job today, thank you.’

“Listen,” he replied with a shy smile on his face. “Were you serious earlier?”

“About what?” she asked looking out into the dining room and moving out of the way as a patron made her way down the hall to the bathrooms.

“When Michael asked if you had a…uh…I believe his exact wording was ‘sexy date’?” he asked, twisting his finger a bit in his hand.

“Oh,” she said, feeling a slight blush rise in her cheeks. “No. I mean. Yes. I mean…I don’t have any date lined up for this evening.” She felt herself becoming a bright shade of red that matched her top.

“Awesome,” he said with a smile, “because I…um…every Valentines Day I have a bunch of friends over to play stupid card games and drink and just have a decent good time. I wanted to know if you would be interested in coming by?”

“I…” she smiled shyly. “I’m your friend?”

“Sure,” he said with a compassionate grin. “Will you come?”

“Yeah, I get off here at seven,” she said happily. “Where will I be going?” He reached into his pockets and handed her a folded piece of paper.

“Here,” he said. “It says which subway to take, if you’re coming from around here. And my address…in case you get a taxi…and you’ll need the address anyway. And my phone number, just in case you get lost or decide you can’t come or something.”

“Awesome,” she said taking the paper and putting it deep into her pockets so she wouldn’t lose it.

“So you’ll be there?” he asked.

“I’ll be there,” she replied. He grinned, nodded and returned to his table where he, Michael and Ryan quickly departed once more.

When she returned to the table to pick up the receipts that they had left, she noticed that they had all tipped her even more so than usual.

 

She left work at 7:15 that evening after her last table had paid. She contemplated going home before searching for Jim’s, but at the last minute decided against it. She didn’t know how long it was going to take her to find his apartment building and she didn’t know how far away it was on the subway. After all, her red, cotton shirt and black skirt she had worn for work that whole day was plenty Valentines-y and it was plenty suitable for a fun night out with some friends.

As she sat on the subway, following the exact route that Jim had scrawled out for her, she wondered how many people would be there and what it would be like to interact around a bunch of people that weren’t complete football nuts or her family. For that matter, she had never been around businessmen in a non-business sense. Would all the people there be work acquaintances of Jim’s? Would Michael and Ryan be there? How would everyone be dressed? How would they act?

She hadn’t really felt nervous when she left work, but the closer she came to the stop she needed to get off at, the more anxious she became. She began to wonder if this was such a good idea. She started to contemplate pulling out her phone and calling Jim to cancel.

She stood up under power that she wasn’t entirely certain was her own and stepped towards the sliding doors of the subway car. The bell dinged, the doors opened and she rushed out along with a handful of other people making a beeline for the exit staircase.

She reached the street and looked around.

“Which way do I go?” she pulled out the now crumpled piece of paper Jim had handed to her earlier and searched his instructions in the dark. She knew that asking for instructions from a passerby on the street would get her no where. She learned that within the first couple weeks of living in the city. Reluctantly, she reached into her purse, pulled out her cell phone and dialed Jim’s phone number – possibly one of the only things left on the sheet that could be easily read.

“Jim?” she asked when she heard the phone pick up.

“Hang on…” she looked around her nervously. She didn’t feel like she was in a bad neighborhood, but she could never be certain. “Hey Jim! Some chick’s on the phone for you!” There was a long pause. “Hello?”

“Jim!” she said a little too happily maybe.

“Who is this?” he asked.

“It’s Pam,” she replied, there was a pause. “From the restaurant.”

“Of course, yes, I know,” he said. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m…lost,” she said quietly.

“Where are you?”

“I’m right outside of the subway entrance…I can’t read the rest of your directions.”

“Oh! Okay. So you should be facing a grocery store on the other side of the street, and you should be standing right in front of a small bank. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, go left, towards the pizza place on the corner.”

“Okay, walking.” She smiled.

“Now, you’re going to walk two blocks up that side of the street and then turn left when you reach a Subway…the restaurant, not another subway.”

“Kay.”

“Turn left at the Subway and my building is on the left side of the street, on the corner of the end of that block.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“You got all that?”

“Got it.”

“I’ll see you soon, Pam.”

“See you soon, bye!”

 

He lived in a brick town house. A town house! She walked up the steps to the front door where there were only two buzzers. She looked up at the two-story structure. So he owned half of this thing?

“Hey, you made it,” he swung open front door and she jumped.

“Jesus,” she said with a startled breath.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “Come in, come in.” He pulled her inside the door by her shoulder and she followed him through a second door which brought them to a small lobby with two doors.

“Which door?” she asked with a smirk.

“Well, one has lions, the other has booze,” he replied.

“Lions?” she asked. “I’ve always wanted to go on an Africa safari.” He laughed.

“No, the lions are just code for bitter old lady with too many cats,” he said as he pulled her into the door on the right.

There weren’t too many people there and that eased her mind a bit. They were all dressed casually, most in jeans, a couple still in their clothes from work. She immediately spotted Michael and Ryan sitting at the end of Jim’s dining room table, cards in hand and in the middle of an intense game. The rest of the faces were not familiar. There were a couple of other women there, but they were obviously there with some of the men. Pam nervously looked up at Jim.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I don’t know anyone,” she replied quietly.

“Well, you know Michael and Ryan over there,” he said pointing to the two of them.

“But no one else,” she said quietly, feeling a little pink in the cheeks.

“Okay, I’ll introduce you then,” he said. He cleared his throat loudly and placed a reassuring arm around her shoulders – unfortunately, it only turned her cheeks pinker.

“Hey! Pam’s here!” Michael called out as he looked up, sounding a little drunk.

“I guess there’s no need,” Pam said with a smile.

“Everyone!” Jim called out. Most people stopped what they were doing and turned their attention to the door where the two of them were standing. “Sorry to interrupt, but this is Pam.” She looked up at him, wondering if he had exaggerated the ‘am’ in her name or if it was just in her head. “She is my friend. Be nice to her.”

“What an eloquent speaker you are,” Pam joked as she broke away from his arm.

“I try,” he said. “Do you want something to drink?”

“I don’t know, I have class first thing tomorrow morning…” she said thoughtfully.

“I’m making pink drinks,” he said with a shrug.

“Well, when you put it that way, they just sound even more dangerous,” she said with a smile.

“Beer?” he asked. She nodded.

 

She made it through the party and she found herself actually having a good time once she warmed up to some of the other people that were there. She met Matt and Justine, two of Jim’s friends from college that he had known for many years. Matt was still working his way through graduate school to become a lawyer and Justine worked as a nurse in small doctor’s clinic in Brooklyn. There was another friend of his from graduate school that now owned and operated a very small chain of restaurants around New York City. The other five people at the party however were straight from the advertising company that he worked for.

Everyone had been very nice to her, very interested in what she was doing and a couple guests even asked to see pieces of art that she had done. The party had been nothing like the parties that she and Roy had thrown. She felt like she had actually been a part of this. She hadn’t been corralled in with the rest of the women at the party and forced to talk about things that she didn’t care about. By the end of the night she felt so much better about herself, what she was doing and who she was. As far as she was concerned, it was the greatest party she had ever been to.

“I’ll see you at work tomorrow,” Ryan said as he plucked his coat from a peg next to the door.

“Great,” Jim said with a smile, “glad that you could come, Ryan.” He nodded and then Ryan looked over at Pam.

“Pam?” he asked. She perked up and looked him in the eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Um…can you tell Kelly that I’m sorry I didn’t call her?” Ryan asked nervously. “She wanted me to call her tonight but…uh…” he bit his lip and Pam smiled.

“Don’t worry, Ryan,” she said. “I’ll relay the message.” She knew as well as anyone that Kelly could be a handful a lot of the time. Kelly had probably been expecting an immediate response to the date that they had had, but Pam could tell just by looking at Ryan’s nervous demeanor that he wasn’t ready for a relationship like the one Kelly wanted.

“Thanks,” he said with a gracious smile. “See you later.”

“Bye, man,” Jim said as he playfully smacked Ryan on the back as he walked out the door.

“So…” Pam looked up at Jim once he closed the door. “I probably should be going.” She looked around and realized that she was the only one left.

“It’s only eleven,” he said looking at the clock on his wall. “I won’t make you drink, but I would like it if you stayed a bit longer.” The flush began to rise in her cheeks again and she swore that she giggled softly.

“But the subways…”

“I’ll pay for your cab ride back to your apartment,” he said.

“You’re too generous,” she said as she started to walk towards his dining room table.

“So what brings Pam…what’s your last name?” he asked.

“Beesly,” she replied with a smile.

“What brings Pam Beesly to the city that never sleeps?” he asked. She smiled.

“You know that, I wanted to go to art school,” she replied.

“Why?”

She sighed and the smile began to disappear from her face.

“Not the right question to ask?”

“No, it’s fine,” she said with a shake of her head.

“If it makes you feel better, I’ll let you ask me any personal question you could possibly want to throw at me,” he said.

“Fair,” she said, the smile returning slightly. “I moved to New York City to get away from my fiancé. God…ex-fiancé.”

“Did he chase you?” Jim asked.

“No,” she replied. “I thought he would, but he’s kept his distance pretty successfully. He’s tried to win me back with expensive gifts…that I sell back for rent money.” She smiled.

“Wow.”

“So Jim…”

“Halpert.”

“So Jim Halpert, what brings you into the wide world of advertising?” she asked with a smile.

“Really? That’s the question you want to ask me?”

“I’m curious.”

“I enjoy it. There’s nothing more that I like than making up catchy slogans that people will use and see on a continual day-to-day basis,” he said with a nod.

“So it’s like being a celebrity except no one knows you,” she said with a smile.

“Who says no one knows me?” he asked as he leaned towards her from across the table. She shrugged. “So what did you do before you came to New York?”

“Not…much,” she said quietly.

“You didn’t have a job? You didn’t go to school? Nothing?”

“No…” she became really quiet, “Roy didn’t like me working.”

“Are you serious?” he asked, his head dropping slightly.

“Serious,” she replied. “I mostly worked as a waitress when I had the chance. Usually during his down time when we needed a little bit more money.”

“What did he do?”

“He was a football player,” Pam replied flatly.

“For what team?”

“The AFL,” Pam replied.

“What?”

“Arena football. The NFL didn’t want him.” She laughed to herself at the thought of Roy playing in the NFL.

“Are you serious?” Jim asked, his mouth open in surprise. “Pam, you’re kidding with me, right?”

“No, I’m dead serious,” she replied with a shrug.

“So how far into the engagement did you make it?” he asked.

“Nine years,” she replied.

“Nine years?” his eyes widened. “Nine years!”

“I left him at the altar,” she said with a smile on her face, though she couldn’t quite figure out why she was smiling.

“You’re kidding.”

“All I had to do was say the vows and I would still be in Pennsylvania right now,” she said.

“Oh my god. Oh my god, Pam,” he said with a smile on his face. “I can’t believe you. I can’t. You have to be making this up.”

“I’m not,” she said with a smile, stifling a laugh. “God, I wish I was.”

“My god,” he said with a smile matching hers. “I think that you are now my coolest friend. And believe me, I have a lot of cool friends.”

“I’m your coolest friend?” she asked. “For leaving my fiancé during our wedding? I think that you need to start gauging your friends’ coolness by some other factor here.” Jim laughed. “I mean, I didn’t even realize we were even friends until you invited me over here tonight.”

“What?”

“Really, I thought you just liked the way I served you at the restaurant,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Well, you’re definitely my friend now. No way around it.”

“Thanks. I mean, really, thanks. I was beginning to think that I would be stuck with friends like Kelly and Angela for the rest of my life here.”

“Michael and Ryan are pretty fond of you too, you know,” Jim said. “Michael especially.”

“I guess I’ve noticed that,” she nodded.

“Seriously though,” he said, “that phone number I gave you earlier. Enter it into your phone. Call me whenever you want. Whenever you’re feeling lonely.” The blush returned to her cheeks. “I might be out of the state, out of the country, but I’ll still pick up. And I’ll talk to you.”

“Thanks.” She looked up at the clock, it was 11:30. Time had passed by so quickly.

“You need to get home, don’t you?” he asked, she nodded. “Come on, I’ll get you a cab.”

He grabbed both of their coats from the peg next to the door. He helped her into hers and quickly threw his own over his shoulder before stepping out of his apartment and pulling her along with him.

They stood on the street corner and waited for a cab to drive by.

“Thanks for coming tonight,” he said quietly as he looked back and forth down the street for a vehicle to appear.

“Thanks for inviting me,” she said. “If you hadn’t, I probably would have been stuck at home, halfway through a bottle of wine. Thanks to you, I won’t have a bad hangover in class.”

“You’re welcome,” he said as he looked the other way. “Oh hey, by the way, how long do you have left in school? I meant to ask you, but it slipped my mind.”

“I’ll just have next year. Luckily those two years I had before Roy convinced me I didn’t need it gave me a bit of a leg-up,” she said as she looked around.

“What do you think you’re going to do with the degree?” he asked.

“I want to do illustrations, I think,” she replied. “Like for children’s books. Maybe with a gallery on the side or something.” She smiled, her teeth hurting a bit against the cold air that surrounded them.

“Very cool,” he said with a nod. “Oh! Here’s a cab!”

He quickly jumped up in the air and waved his hand and the cab slowly pulled over to the side of the curb. He stepped down and opened up the door.

“Here,” Jim shoved a fifty dollar bill into Pam’s hand; she looked up at him with wide eyes.

“There’s no way I need all of this,” she said with a shake of her head.

“I…I know,” he said quietly. “It’s all that I have and…I don’t know, buy yourself some nice art supplies with whatever you have leftover.”

“Jim, I…”

“Hey lady, you coming or not?” the cab driver shouted back at the two of them.

“Yeah,” she said as she slipped towards the backseat of the vehicle.

“Or save it for next time. You can buy a couple cases of beer or something,” he said with a smile. “Don’t worry.”

“Jim…” He nodded. “I’m going to hunt you down tomorrow just so I can give you your change, you know that, right?” He laughed as she slipped into the seat.

“Goodnight Pam,” he said as he stepped up onto the sidewalk again. “Happy Valentines Day.”

“You too, goodnight,” she said as she closed the door. She waved at him as the driver sped off around the corner, and he rocked back and forth on his heels in the brisk night air until she was out of sight.

February 15, 2006

He spun around in his desk chair and looked out the enormous window that overlooked the city skyline.

“I fucking love this place,” he thought to himself as he ran his hand along the bottom of his tie.

“So Halpert.”

He swung around to face the door and smiled at Ryan casually leaning against the frame of the door.

“What’s up, Ryan?” Jim asked as he propped his elbows on his desk. “Reception giving you hell again?”

“Nope,” Ryan said as he kicked the door to Jim’s office closed.

“What brings you ‘round here then?” Jim asked. “It’s not Michael…is it?”

“Nope.”

“Spill it.”

“Did you fuck her?”

“What? Who?”

“The waitress,” Ryan said casually as he smoothed out a wrinkle in his jacket’s lapel. “Pam.”

“What are you talking about?” Jim asked, turning to his computer and clicking open a new e-mail from someone he was to have a meeting with later in the afternoon.

“Pam. Did you or did you not fuck her last night?” Ryan asked.

“Even if I did, I don’t know why you’re asking,” Jim replied casually.

“Just looking for some juicy details,” Ryan said as he brushed his fingernails along the front of his slacks.

“No, I did not,” Jim said firmly.

“She doesn’t like you?”

“I have no idea if she does or not,” Jim said as he turned back to read through the e-mail.

“Do you like her?”

“Christ, what are we in high school again or something?”

“I just think it’s odd,” Ryan said.

“How come?”

“You’re such a hit with the ladies,” Ryan said. “Half of the clients that work under you are women.”

“That’s what she said,” Jim said casually to which he then wrinkled his forehead slightly.

“I don’t think that made a lot of sense, man.”

“No, I just heard it…”

“Anyway, it’s no secret that you’re a charmer,” Ryan said as he sat down in a chair across from Jim. “The last charity event we went to there was that one girl that specifically paid extra for her ticket so she could just get a seat at our table.”

“Oh come on, you’re exaggerating and you know it,” he scrolled on his mouse. “By the way, Johnson is going to be about fifteen minutes late for the meeting today.”

“Fucking Johnson, never on time.”

“You’re completely exaggerating though, Ryan.”

“How so?”

“Because the woman you’re thinking of was sitting at the table to be near you.”

“How many women have you been with in the past year?”

“Since January? Or since last February?” Jim asked, his eyes narrowing as he thought.

“Either or,” Ryan replied as he propped his feet up on top of Jim’s desk.

“Feet off the desk,” Jim said as he pushed on the soles of Ryan’s shoes with a pen. “Since January, zero.”

“Didn’t even get any while down in the Bahamas?”

“It’s not a college spring break and no,” Jim replied.

“Since last February?” he thought. “I don’t know…two maybe? Maybe three…”

“Two? Three?” Ryan asked incredulously. “My god, man. What happened to the Jim Halpert that worked here four years ago?”

“I guess he grew up,” Jim replied with a shrug.

“No way because before you were the man ladies went to,” Ryan said leaning closer to Jim.

“Yeah and then I settled down for a while,” Jim said with raised eyebrows. “And then…”

“The divorce,” they both said simultaneously.

“Right,” Jim said casually turning back to the screen of his computer. They were quiet for a few moments, both casually listening to the phones ringing throughout the office.

“So what do you think of her then?” Ryan asked.

“Who? Pam?” Jim asked. Ryan nodded with an expression on his face that clearly meant, ‘Well duh’. “I don’t know. I like her.”

“Think she might be something a little special?” Ryan asked as he stood up. Jim shrugged and smiled a little.

“Maybe,” he said and chuckled to himself. “We’ll see.”

Late April 2006

She threw her paintbrush, drenched in blue paint, at the empty canvas in frustration. A cerulean splotch popped from the white background and she slowly stepped back to her bed and fell backwards, her head just barely missing a shelf of the bookcase. She took a deep sigh and looked at the clock – 2:30 AM. She had no idea being an art student would keep her up this late at night. She looked at the small black cell phone sitting behind one of her pillows. She should call him.

She picked up the phone and searched through her short list of contacts for his name. She felt a rush of energy go through her as the phone rang in her ear.

“Hello?” a groggy voice answered.

“I’m sorry if I woke you,” she said quietly sitting up and staring at the white canvas with a bright blue splotch in the middle. It was mocking her.

“Pam? Is that you?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry I’m calling so late,” she said.

“It’s okay,” he said quietly as she heard some blankets rustle through the connection. “What’s wrong?”

“I have a problem, Jim,” she said as she looked down at the paintbrush, lying on the floor on top of some old newspapers.

“What’s wrong?” he repeated.

“I hate abstract art,” she said with a defeated sigh. She heard a small chuckle come from his end of the line.

“So you want help with your homework, do you?” he asked. “At three in the morning of all times.”

“It’s not three…yet,” she replied. “And yes, I need help.”

“What do you have so far?” he asked.

“A blue splotch on a white canvas,” she replied glumly.

“Riveting,” he said with a laugh, “I think you should leave it just the way it is.”

“It’s supposed to embody ourselves…in abstract form…or something.”

“And you chose a blue streak? Wow, Pam, I had you all wrong.” She laughed this time.

“I figured blue was a good color to embody myself, is all,” she said, “but seriously. I have no idea what to paint. It doesn’t help that I hate oil paints.”

“You can even choose what medium you want to work with?”

“Nope,” she said with a shrug, even though she knew he couldn’t see it. “Otherwise all the ceramics students would be turning in abstract lumps of clay and the professor doesn’t want that.”

“Understandable, I suppose.”

“Anyway,” she said with a sigh, “I’m completely stuck now. I have no idea how to abstractly describe myself through oil paints. I need help.”

“I don’t know if I know you that well, but I’ll do what I can to help,” he said. “Are you standing in front of it right now?”

“No, I’m just looking at it, it’s taunting me with it’s…impossibilities,” she said with a grumble.

“Okay, well first things first, go stand in front of it,” he said. She pulled herself off of her bed and went to stand in front of the canvas.

“Stupid…stupid,” she said indignantly at what was supposed to be her final exam for the class.

“You have the paintbrush in your hand?” he asked.

“No, hang on,” she replied as she bent over and picked the blue brush from the floor. “Okay, paintbrush is in the hand.”

“Okay,” he said, she could almost sense a smile on his face, “close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Okay…better question from me here, what is this painting supposed to represent?”

“Me.”

“Right, you,” he said. “Now, I’d love to know you better, but let’s face it, we mostly only see each other on Tuesdays, and even when you call me, it’s usually just so you can talk about what a rough day you’ve had.”

“I’m sorry…”

“No, it’s fine, I love that you call me and tell me about jokes that you’ve played on your boss. Which speaking of, I have some brilliant new ideas to try out.” Pam smiled and she swept the paintbrush along a side of the canvas.

“Can’t wait,” she said.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I assume that what your professor is looking for is some proclamation of your spirit, of your soul. If I’m going to help you out with this, I’m going to need you to tell me some things about yourself.”

“How is that going to help?”

“Maybe hearing yourself say some of those things aloud will help you convey them a bit better,” he said softly.

“Well, I guess I’ll try anything at this point,” she said as she took a deep breath.

“Just, close your eyes and paint what you feel as I talk to you, or as you talk to me, rather” he said.

“Eyes are closed,” she said as she positioned the paintbrush against the canvas.

“Tell me about your family, where were you born? Where did you grow up?”

“I was born in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1979. I lived there with my mother and father until I was six and then we moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania where my younger sister, Kate was born.”

“I knew you were the same age as me,” Jim interjected. She smiled as her brush swept across the canvas and she quickly opened her eyes to dip the paintbrush into a splattering of white paint next to her.

“My dad died when I was fifteen…”

“How did he die?”

“Cancer,” she said as she quickly set down the blue brush and picked up another for a different color paint.

“What was school like for you?”

“Middle school was okay. I had a few friends, I was an art geek. Well, to be fair, I was an art geek all through high school too,” she explained. “I was happy with it though. I was okay being unpopular. It worked for me.”

“Mhm,” Jim murmured. “When did you meet your fiancé?”

“Ex-fiancé,” Pam corrected. “I met him in high school. He was on the football team – he had been on the football team through middle school. Everyone knew him. We started dating just around the time of our junior prom. He asked me to the dance, I couldn’t believe it – art geek and all.”

“Of course.”

“And…I don’t know, there was something between us that clicked. We were good together for some reason. I hated all of his friends though. During my senior year I was constantly jealous of all of the girls he hung around with. I’m still pretty sure that he cheated on me with the captain of the cheerleading squad that year. But I stuck with him.” Her brush swept long strokes across the white of the canvas; it was quickly becoming a real abstract work of art. “Anyway, we went to the same college – I got accepted to several art programs at a couple of universities around Pennsylvania, but I turned them all down because Roy wasn’t able to get into any of the schools with his low GPA and bad test scores.”

“That sucks.”

“A lot,” she said as she set down the paintbrush she had been using and picked up another for the blue again.

“Then what?”

“Then…well, we went to college. We both went for two years, and it was around that second year that recruiters started to check him out.”

“Recruiters?”

“Yeah, like, major universities and professional football leagues.”

“Major universities?”

“Yeah, he actually got offers from big name schools like Miami and I think even Michigan might have offered him something, but he didn’t want to go to school anymore,” she said as her arm made a large sweeping motion across the canvas.

“Have you opened your eyes yet?” Jim asked.

“No, they’re still shut,” she replied.

“Good, keep them shut,” he said, “keep going though, your story is riveting.”

She giggled, “So anyway, he really wanted to stay in Pennsylvania, I’m not really sure why since it didn’t really seem there was a whole lot there to offer. But during one of his football games that second year of college, there were some scouts from the Pioneers…”

“Pioneers?”

“The arena football team that Roy played for.”

“Oh, of course.”

“And they made him a great offer. We didn’t even have to move away from Scranton. How great, right?”

“Wonderful,” Jim said sarcastically and Pam giggled again.

“So he made it into the league of professional…or at least somewhat professional football, and...that’s that, I suppose. He told me that there was no need for me to go to college anymore because the money that he made from football was plenty to support the two of us. I reluctantly believed him and so I dropped out. He proposed to me a few months later, we were engaged for several years while he bought me anything that my heart could possibly desire…” she paused and took a deep breath, suddenly feeling shaky on her legs.

“Pam? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she took another deep breath, fighting back the inexplicable tears that she could feel rising in her throat. “Anyway…”

“You don’t have to go on, if you don’t want to.”

“No, no, I want to. It feels good to tell someone about it.”

“Okay…”

“Anyway, so we were engaged for several years, and the entire time I kept asking myself, ‘Pam, is this really what you want in your life? Do you really want to be a housewife forever? Do you really want to be the wife of a crappy AFL football player?’” She heard Jim laugh on the other end of the line as her paintbrush made quick, rapid swoops across the canvas.

“He was crappy?”

“Well, he was a perfectly good player, but the way he talked about himself and his team you would think that he thought of himself as a god or at the very least an MVP in the NFL,” she said with a small laugh.

“So then…”

“So then…we planned the wedding, everything was set in stone, wedding day came around and everything was just a wreck. Usually people say that if the wedding day is awful that it only means the foundations of a long-lasting marriage, but I think that idea even scared me more. I started to wonder how much longer we could really last. How much longer I could last for that matter and…” she sighed as she set down her paintbrush. “I cracked. I was standing up there in front of my family, in front of his family, in front of his entire football team for Christ sakes and all that I could think of was how I didn’t want to be there, how I didn’t want this life and…” her voice cracked. “I ran.”

“Did you actually run?”

She smiled, “I think that my exact words were… ‘I’m sorry, I can’t’ and then I turned around and quickly left the altar as fast as I could.”

“Wow.”

Both ends of the line were silent for a few moments as Pam stood swaying around in small circles, her eyes still closed. Her hands empty – with the exception of the cell phone held next to her ear, and feeling calm for the first time in the past week.

“You want to open your eyes now?”

“I don’t know, what if I hate it?”

“I don’t think you will,” he said.

“Okay,” she said with a deep breath, “opening my eyes. If I hate it, I’m blaming you.”

“And if you love it?”

“You’re getting extra fries with your sandwich on Tuesday,” she said with a grin, her eyes still closed.

“Awesome! Even more incentive for you to love what you’ve created,” he said with a laugh.

She gasped and remained silent when her eyes opened. She stared at the now-colorful canvas in front of her covered with sweeping brush strokes and thick, blocky lines. She had painted the bottom a rich layer of cerulean blue, pure blue, like water. As the colors rose, they became a little bit lighter, but the canvas quickly became dark, the colors muddled with dark purple, a greenish color and red. As the colors rose on the canvas, they only became darker, with a dark, almost black line near the very top and it ended abruptly. Following the dark line was a pure, cerulean blue much like the bottom, with sweeping white lines a little flecks of a pinkish color.

“So?”

She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.

“Pam? Are you still there?”

“Yeah…” she stammered as she looked at the swirling colors, the abstract lines of her life.

“So how is it?”

“It’s…” she looked at it over and over again, not believing what she had created without even looking. “It’s…me. It’s perfect.”

“Really?”

“Yes, it’s…just…perfect,” she said quietly and a huge grin crossed her face. “You’re getting extra fries for the next month, Halpert.” He laughed.

“I’ll have to see this sometime, take a picture of it or something and show me.”

“Definitely.”

“I probably better get back to sleep though, I have a client coming in first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Oh! God! Of course! Sorry!” she found the strength in her legs again and walked over to the side of her bed.

“No, I was glad to help,” he said earnestly.

“Thanks,” she said, “thanks for everything. I’ll see you…well…in a week, I guess.”

“Unless I run into you sooner,” he said.

“Of course. Thanks again, Jim.”

“Not a problem. Sleep well, Pam.”

“Thanks, you too.”

She heard the click of his phone closing shut, ending the call. She smiled as she looked up at the colorful canvas in front of her. She fell back onto her comforter and stared up at the ceiling happily.

“Jim Halpert, you are my hero,” she said quietly to herself as she lazily closed her eyes.

May 16, 2006

“Here,” he shoved a child’s fork into her hand as he passed by her on his way back from the restroom.

“What the hell is this, Jim?” she asked as she turned the fork over in the palm of her hand. The handle was decorated in Sesame Street cartoon characters.

“I’ve been pulling these pranks on Dwight over the past…god, I don’t know, two years probably,” Jim explained as he pulled her aside, away from the doors to the kitchen. “Anyway, I have this children’s Sesame Street dinner set. Cups, plates, bowls, silverware, you name it, it’s in this set.” Pam nodded earnestly. “Anyway, I stopped when you arrived because the person that left just before you were hired caught onto me and threatened to tell Dwight what I was doing.”

“What are you doing?” Pam asked with a furrowed brow.

“I’m giving him the entire set one piece at a time,” he replied, a sparkle in his eyes. “Every time I come for lunch, I bring along one item, and leave it on our table when we leave. When the waitresses come by and pick the things up, this children’s dinnerware is taken with them. It drives Dwight insane.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Are you sure that I won’t get in trouble for this?” Pam asked as she placed the fork into her pocket.

“No,” Jim replied. “Like I said, I’ve been doing this for two years. It’s just fun to mess with him every once in a while. As long as you’re not insulting beets, he’s cool.”

“I have to say, Jim,” Pam said as he began to walk away. “This is by far, the weirdest thing anyone has ever asked me to do.”

“Glad to expand your horizons, Beesly,” he said with a wink as he walked back to his table. As Michael and Ryan filed out in front of him, she noticed Jim take a small plate out of his briefcase and set it next to the one that he had been eating his lunch off of. Pam stifled a giggle and went to clean off the table.

**

“Do you ever work, Ryan?” Jim asked as he swiveled around in his desk chair to see Ryan standing in his doorway.

“Sometimes,” he replied with a casual shrug. “Really, Michael’s the one you should worry about. He’s currently in a meeting with a couple representatives from Cadillac making an utter fool of himself.”

“And you didn’t intervene?” Jim asked.

“We’ll still have their business, irregardless of how badly he fucks up in there,” Ryan replied as he started to exit the doorway.

“Wait, Ryan,” Jim waved him back. “I have something I want to ask you.”

“What? Jim Halpert? A man with questions?” Ryan asked with a look of exaggerated shock on his face. “I never!”

“Seriously,” Jim said with a quick nod.

“Seriously, what?”

“You dated that one girl from The Golden Beet, right? Kelly? The Indian girl?” Jim asked.

“I went out with her a couple times,” Ryan replied. “We screw around sometimes on the weekends.”

“Screw around?”

“Yeah, you know, I go over to her place and…” Jim quickly held his hand up.

“Say no more. I’d rather not go into that sort of information,” he said quickly.

“Why do you ask?”

“I’m thinking about maybe asking Pam to the dinner gala that first week in June,” Jim said casually.

“The dinner gala?” Ryan asked. “You mean the dinner gala that the biggest advertising company in New York is hosting?”

“Yeah.”

“No. No way.”

“Why? Why not?”

“She’s a waitress.”

“So?”

“The dinner gala is for…you know…”

“Rich people?” Jim asked sarcastically.

“Well, I wouldn’t put it quite that way, but…come on, are you serious?”

“You’re horrible,” Jim said with half a smile on his face. “Forget I asked you. I’ll ask Michael what he thinks.”

“Jim, I would never take Kelly to one of those things,” Ryan said flatly.

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Jim said with a smirk, “she’d catch sight of a celebrity and go ape shit.” Ryan shrugged.

“True.”

“I’ll just…I’ll talk to you later,” Jim said waving Ryan away this time. Ryan stood up and casually, slowly walked towards Jim’s door.

“You like her, don’t you?” he asked with a boyish grin on his face. Jim shrugged.

“Maybe I do,” he replied as he turned back towards his computer.

**

Jim knocked firmly on the door to Michael’s office.

“Come in!”

He opened the door and stepped inside to find Michael drawing faces onto a mock-up advertisement for Cadillac that he had drawn up earlier in the week.

“You know, it’s not nice to ruin other people’s hard work,” Jim said flatly as he watched Michael drawing thick black flames coming from the hood of a sports car.

“Oh Jim, you take everything so seriously,” Michael said with an eye roll as he imitated people screaming as he scribbled.

“I take it the meeting with the representatives didn’t go too well?” Jim asked.

“No…people don’t know what they want,” Michael replied as he rolled his eyes again.

“Wow…”

“What can I do you for, Jim-bo?”

“I’m trying to figure out who I’m going to bring to the dinner gala at the beginning of next month,” Jim said quietly, taking a seat across from Michael’s desk.

“Oh?” Michael stopped doodling and closed the cap on the Sharpie.

“Yeah.”

“You’re actually thinking about bringing someone this year?” Jim shrugged. “So this means that you’re finally over…”

“Don’t say it.”

“Fine, I won’t,” Michael said with a shrug. “Who are you thinking about bringing? Someone I know?” He winked twice.

“I hope that you’re not implying that you be my date, Michael,” Jim said with a laugh.

“Oh heavens no…blech,” Michael said as he stuck out his tongue in disgust, “I have a date anyways. Real estate developer for the middle of Manhattan.”

“Nice.”

“Who’s the lucky lady, Mr. Halpert?”

“I really want Pam to come with me,” Jim said, maybe a little more nervously than he had intended.

“Pam?” Michael searched his mind. “Pam…Pam…oh! The waitress, Pam?”

“Yeah, her,” Jim said as he looked down in his lap.

“Hey, sure, whatever you want,” Michael said with a shrug.

“Really? Because Ryan said…”

“Who cares what Ryan said,” Michael scoffed. “Ryan would bring a prostitute if he could get away with it. He’s all talk. Talk talk talk.” Jim smiled and laughed a little to himself. “If you want to bring Pam, go ahead and bring Pam. I think it’s great that you’re finally going to go out with someone after that whole di…”

“Don’t say it.”

“Div…”

“Don’t say it, Michael.”

“Divorce!” he spat out quickly and Jim shook his head.

“You are…”

“Oh come on,” Michael chided, “that was like…two years ago?”

“A year and a half,” Jim said quietly. “And it doesn’t matter because that has not been swaying my decisions.”

“I would beg to differ.”

“Well you go ahead and beg,” Jim said with a sigh.

“She might be at the gala, you know,” Michael said with a speculative raise of his eyebrow. Jim looked up at him with a question in his eyes.

“Pam?”

“No, the big ex.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“That’s not why you want…you’re not going to…is that why you want to bring Pam?”

“Not at all,” Jim said defiantly. “I want to bring Pam because I like her. And I think that she would probably enjoy herself. I don’t think that she has a whole lot of friends and…” he stopped himself.

“And what?”

“And…I like her. I just like her is all.” Michael smiled like a little boy who had just been rewarded with candy and nodded.

“Well, I think that Pam would be a marvelous date,” Michael said with a nod. “And if you want to bring her along, I think that would be wonderful.” Jim smiled and stood up.

“Thank you for your input, Michael,” Jim said. “And please, don’t completely ruin that poster. I worked for a good two days on that thing.”

“Yes yes, of course,” Michael said as he waved Jim out of his office.

May 17, 2006

There was something buzzing against her hip. She jumped as she reached down into her purse hanging casually against her side and smiled when she recognized the phone number.

“Hey.”

“Hi”

“What’s up Mr. Halpert?”

“I have a proposition for you.”

“Oh do you now?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Are you going to tell me or are you going to just speak in very short sentences.”

“I like short sentences.”

“What do you want?”

“Are you doing anything right now?”

“Not right now, no, just walking.”

“Where are you walking to?”

“Grocery store, I need to pick up some orange juice.”

“Can you meet me around lunch in Central Park?”

“Central Park? Well…I don’t know…”

“Meet me at Strawberry Fields. 12:30.”

“Okay, I’ll be there.”

**

She had changed into a spring dress. She couldn’t remember the last time that she wore a true, springy cotton dress. She brought her sketchbook and a small tin of charcoals along with her and arrived at the park at 11:30. Why not have some time to kill and just sketch for an hour before Jim arrived?

She was sitting on the bench, sketching the budding trees and the sunny skyline within her line of view. She could care less if Jim showed up. She could spend the rest of her day here alone if she really wanted to…

“Pam?”

She turned around quickly and saw Jim standing behind her, in his full business suit and his hands in his pockets.

“Hey,” she smiled warmly and closed her sketchbook.

“Do you ever let others see what you’ve created?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Every time I’ve approached you with that sketchbook, you always close it when you realize I’m near you,” he said casually.

“Do you want to see what I’ve done?” she asked. “They’re really nothing. Just…crude sketches, really.”

“I think I would at some point,” he said as he walked around the back of the bench and took a seat next to her.

“So what do you so urgently need to talk to me about?” she asked with a smile.

“When was the last time you wore a sundress?” he asked as he boldly fingered the hem of her skirt at her knees.

“I don’t remember,” she replied. “I figured that today was as good a day as any to break it out of the ol’ closet though.” He nodded.

“Well you look very nice,” he said. He stood slightly and reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Pam looked away, taking note of a couple of pedestrians nearby. “And speaking of looking nice…”

He pulled out a ticket to the dinner gala and lightly set it on top of her lap.

“What?” she asked as her head turned back towards him. He nodded to her lap. She looked down at the white ticket, contrasting against the pastel blues and yellow of her skirt and ran her finger along the edges. “What is this?”

“Well…” he took a deep breath. When had he ever been this nervous about asking someone to a black tie event in the past? “The company I work for…well…no…wait, let me start over.”

“It’s a dinner gala?” she asked as she read what was written on the ticket.

“Yes, the biggest advertising company in New York City, it ranks somewhere like number two or three internationally,” he explained slowly. “The company has a dinner gala once a year. Unveils new ideas, awards certain employees and companies, a lot of really boring, tedious monotony, really.” Pam nodded along. “Anyway, every advertiser is allowed one guest, and I really would like it if you would come with me.”

“Really?” she asked, she seemed taken aback.

“If you want to,” he replied.

“Well…wow,” she said as she looked at the ticket again, “I have no idea what I’d even wear. I don’t think that I have anything to wear…” she paused for a long moment, “I mean, Roy used to take me to football awards things where I’d get dressed up, but I don’t have any of those clothes anymore…” She looked Jim in the eyes with a sad face. “I’m sorry, I just…I don’t think I can. I can’t afford anything really nice.”

“I’ll buy you a dress,” he said quickly.

“Jim…”

“No, I will. I’ll buy you any dress that you want, I’ll help you pick one out if you want to know what sort of outfit you should go for,” he said quickly, so quickly he thought his tongue would trip over itself. She smiled and handed the ticket back to him.

“I don’t want you to do that,” she said quietly as she picked up her sketchbook and placed it in her lap.

“Please,” he said, handing the ticket back to her. She tilted her head slightly and smiled.

“Do you really want me to come?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “I really want you to come.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“But really…why?” she took the ticket in her hand and tucked it into her purse so it wouldn’t become lost.

“Because…” he thought and then sighed, “I kind of like you.” Her smile widened and she brought her hand to her mouth and started to nervously chew on a fingernail.

“Really?” He nodded.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” she said as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and stood up. “But I’ll only go under two conditions.”

“Name them,” he said with a smile.

“Wait! Three,” she said quickly.

“Three? Well you’re kind of pushing it now,” he said as he stood up beside her and they started walking away from the bench.

“Condition number one.”

“Go.”

“Condition number one states that I get to pay for some of the dress. I don’t know how fancy we’re talking here. I may have to go slightly off the rack on this one if that’s okay. Hopefully there won’t be any paparazzi talking about my horrific fashion faux pas,” she said with a small laugh.

“Paparazzi usually stay away from the non-celebrities,” he said.

“There will be celebrities there?” she asked slowing her pace.

“There always are,” he replied.

“That’s kind of cool,” she said. “Okay, condition number two.”

“Go.”

“Condition number two states that you must pick me up. From my apartment. There will be no subways to meet you half way and there will be no lonely taxi rides,” she boldly stated.

“Sounds fair enough to me,” he said with a nod.

“And condition number three.”

“Go.”

“Condition number three states that you have to have lunch with me right now,” she said linking her arm through his. He stopped along the path and quickly looked down at his wristwatch. “What?”

“Condition number three is a no-go,” he said with a glum look on his face.

“What?! But these are my conditions!” she exclaimed.

“I’m sorry, but I really need to get back to work,” he said as he looked into her eyes. She looked genuinely sad.

“Dinner?” she asked.

“Do you work tonight?”

“No.”

“Then I can do dinner,” he said with a smile as they started to walk again.

“Nothing too fancy,” she said with a grin as she playfully nudged at him.

“Nothing too fancy, got it,” he said with a wink.

“I’m serious!”

“I’m serious too,” he laughed at the goofy expression on her face. “Do I need to pick you up?”

“I think that certain date etiquette dictates that you do,” she said.

“Oh so this is a date now?” he asked, trying to contain the smile that would certainly give away his true feelings if he allowed it.

“No…” she said slowly, trying to gauge his reaction. He laughed again.

“Well, Miss Beesly,” he said, “if I am to pick you up, I am going to need to know where to pick you up from.”

“Will you really pick me up?” she asked happily.

“Of course!” he replied. “After all, I think it’s only fair. You’ve seen my place, it’s high time I see yours.” She grinned wide and clutched onto his arm a little tighter.

“If we can quick sit down again, I’ll write you some quick directions,” she said. She quickly skipped over to a bench and opened up her sketch book again and scrawled out directions on a blank page with a pen from her purse.

“So any last words of wisdom before I part with you?” he asked as she handed him the piece of paper.

“I live right above a bakery,” she replied. “You can’t miss it, I promise.”

“I guess we shall see about that,” he said. “I’ll try to be there around seven.” She nodded.

“I’ll see you then.”

**

She heard her intercom buzz at six that evening.

“No! No! Shit! No! Not yet!” she cried as she jumped up from her seat at the window, her art easel in front of her. She looked down towards the street through the panes of glass to see Jim standing in front of the door next to the bakery. He was wearing a button up t-shirt and jeans, his hands were stuffed in his pockets.

She ran over to the intercom and pushed the button to let him in.

“Come on up!” she said into the speaker as the door unlocked.

“Damn it!” she cried as she pulled off the dirty t-shirt she had been painting in and quickly pulled off her painting jeans that were splotched with many different colors.

Before she could even slip into the dress that she had been wearing earlier, there was a knock at her door.

“Hang on! Just a minute!” she called towards the door as she scurried around, muttering curses under her breath. He wasn’t supposed to be here for another hour yet!

She slipped the sleeves of her dress over her arms and quickly dashed to the door, opening it with a little too much flourish. Her hair was still up in a messy ponytail, her face was streaked with a little bit of green paint and her chest was heaving up and down from the surprise of Jim’s early arrival.

“Sorry I’m early,” he said with a shrug.

“No, it’s just…” she breathed hard against the frame of her doorway.

“I hope I’m not too early,” he said.

“Well, I was thinking about showering but…whatever,” she waved her hand around in no particular direction and turned around. “Come in, come in.”

“So this is where Pam Beesly lives,” he said as he looked around. Pam walked around, tucking in things here and there. She was going to clean too…

“I’m sorry it’s such a mess,” she said and gasped loudly as she noticed a pair of her panties lying in plain view right next to her bed. She rushed over and kicked them out of sight.

“No matter,” he said as he walked through her little kitchen area. “So is this it?”

“What do you mean, ‘is this it’?” she asked with a small smile. “I don’t know if you realized, Mr. Big Moneymaker, but I am a waitress and I am a student. So if you don’t like it, you can just go back to your nice, big townhouse and eat caviar and smoke cigars while you drink your brandy in crystal.”

“Wow, Beesly. Wow,” he said, trying not to laugh. “I have to say. I like it. I like it a lot.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I do too. Especially in the morning. I wake up to the smell of French bread and cinnamon buns.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not in the slightest,” she replied proudly. “You have no idea what the perks are of living above a bakery.” She picked up a couple stacks of books and placed them onto a bookshelf before returning to what she had been painting when he arrived.

“I guess not.”

“So where do you want to eat?” she asked.

“Where do you want to eat?”

“I’d kind of like something…tasty,” she replied with a thoughtful nod.

“Wow, really? Me too!” he exclaimed and she giggled. “You know, I know this great place a couple miles away from here. I believe you might know of it. It’s called The Golden Beet…”

“No, no we are not going there,” she said with a smile as she folded up her easel and put her paints away in a small cupboard.

“Too bad, because it’s really good and they have the cutest waitress that works there.” She could feel an inevitable blush rising in her cheeks.

“I don’t think she’s working tonight,” she quickly responded, turning away from him so he couldn’t notice her red face.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “I do know a great bistro though that’s not too far.”

“What kind of food do they have?”

“Typical delicious French cuisine,” he responded. “Really good seafood, some really good steak and chicken dishes. Desserts that you might just kill for.”

“Sounds great,” she said as she slipped into a pair of heeled sandals.

“I feel kind of underdressed,” he said as he approached the door as she searched for her keys. She turned her face towards his and he smiled down at her. He brought his thumb to her cheek and wiped away the small smudge of green paint.

“You look great,” she said with a wink as she opened the door and the two of them slipped out into the evening.

May 25, 2006

She rushed towards The Golden Beet, a bag from Macy’s in her hand that contained a new dress and a new pair of shoes that Jim had purchased for her to wear to the dinner gala. She was cornered right before she entered the restaurant by an older man, sparse graying hair and fairly presentable attire. He didn’t appear to be homeless, and she tried to push her way past him.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before…” he said with a bit of a sly sneer in his voice. She didn’t say anything, just tried to push past him. “You know, sometimes when I’m sick, or feeling blue, I drink vinegar. I like all kinds: balsamic, vodka, orange juice, leaves.” Pam stopped and looked him in the eyes. Maybe he was crazy? She quickly pushed past him and ran through the front doors of the restaurant.

“Dwight, I think you have a crazy person scaring away customers,” she said as she walked up to the bar, setting her bag down at her feet.

“Crazy people? In front of my restaurant? I don’t think so,” he said as he took a polishing rag to a crystal glass in his hands.

“No really, this guy outside, he just told me that he drinks…leaves,” Pam said with a slight wrinkle in her nose.

“What?” Dwight looked up over her shoulder and saw the man pacing back and forth over near a side of the restaurant, muttering things to himself. Dwight laughed.

“What?” Pam asked, confusion flooding her face.

“That’s just Creed,” Dwight said with a dismissive wave. “He must have finally gotten out of jail.”

“Jail?” Pam asked incredulously.

“He gets in trouble with the law all the time,” Dwight replied casually, “always selling some sort of drug or making up fake IDs for teens.”

“And you don’t care that he’s accosting people in front of your restaurant?” Pam asked. Dwight simply shrugged.

“He’s harmless,” he replied. “He may say a crazy thing or two, but he’s not going to hurt you. He doesn’t hurt anyone.” The two of them both looked outside at Creed as he said something to a businessman walking by the window. “Just to be safe, I think I might start walking you home again…”

“Please Dwight, it’s unnecessary,” she said.

“Or is it completely necessary?” he asked as he placed the crystal glass up on a shelf.

“It’s unnecessary,” she replied blandly.

“Fine,” he said. “What brings you here now, anyway? You’re not working until…wait, you’re not working at all today, why are you here?”

“I need next weekend off,” she said with a nervous smile on her face.

“How come?” Dwight asked, his eyes narrowing a bit.

“I was invited to go to…something,” she replied, not wanting to give away where she was going. She was also wary about saying ‘dinner gala’ when Kelly was so close by.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” The two of them stared at each other for a few painfully awkward moments.

“What were you invited to?” he asked. She looked to search for Kelly, she was currently taking orders from a table in the other room so Pam leaned over the bar and beckoned Dwight to come closer.

“You can’t tell anyone,” Pam hissed.

“Where are you going?” he asked, even more intrigued now. She looked around suspiciously one more time and smiled.

“Jim Halpert…”

“Jim…” Dwight said with disdain in his voice.

“What? You don’t like him?” Pam asked, her eyes widened a bit.

“He thinks he’s so awesome, walking around with his fancy suits and his lots of money…”

Pam quickly stifled a giggle. Did Dwight have a grudge against Jim?

“He’s taking me to this dinner gala next weekend,” Pam said softly.

“Oh my GOD, Pam!” Kelly exclaimed and Pam must have jumped a good six inches off the ground.

“Oh my god, Kelly!” She wanted to smack herself on the forehead for not looking around again to make sure the coast was clear.

“You’re kidding me, right? You’re going to the dinner gala? The dinner gala that Ryan has been parading around in front of my face for the past month?” Kelly asked, the look on her face a cross between excitement, anger and confusion.

“Um…yeah,” Pam said woefully. She hadn’t wanted to make Kelly upset or jealous. She just wanted the weekend off.

“So…” Kelly looked at Pam with big doe-like eyes. “What are you going to wear?”

“Oh, I just got it this afternoon,” she said as she bent over to pick up the bag at her feet. She pulled a brown dress from the bag and held it up in front of herself. It was a knee-length dress, with a low v-cut neckline, sleeveless, and a black silky sash around the waist.

“Oh Pam, that will look beautiful!” Kelly gushed, her hands clasping the charm on her necklace.

“Really? You think so?” she asked.

“Of course, Pam, I know so,” Kelly replied happily. Pam turned back to Dwight and dropped the dress back into her bag.

“So Dwight, the weekend, can I have it off?” Pam asked, propping her elbow on the bar.

“Yeah, go ahead,” he replied. “I don’t want to keep you from having a good time.”

“Thanks,” she said with a big smile. “Really, thanks so much.” She quickly picked the bag back up and started towards the door.

“I expect pictures from you, Pam!” Kelly cried as she opened the door. Pam laughed softly and made her way back out the door, inevitably running into Creed again.

“To be a good pick pocket, you’ve got to look like a regular Joe. Don’t dress up in fancy colors or jewelry. That’s where the Gypsies have it wrong. Pair of slacks, t-shirt, hat – that’s all you need. And it helps to have tiny hands, too.”

Pam raised her eyebrow and carefully watched him as she walked away. Once she had rounded the corner she looked through her bags and purse, just to make sure that he hadn’t stolen anything from her.

June 3, 2006

She felt underdressed as she looked at herself for the tenth time in her mirror. She tugged at a couple of the loose curls that hung over her shoulder and she smoothed the skirt of her dress over her legs again. She brushed another layer of lip gloss over her lips. It probably was not necessary for her to put more on, was it? She sighed as she stood still. Everything was perfect. She had the dress, she had the matching heels, she had the make-up – as sparse as that was, and she had the jewelry that she had made herself. There was just something missing. Was it him?

The buzzer shocked her out of her thoughts and she quickly ran to the window to get a peek of him before she went down to meet him. He was dressed in a tuxedo; an actual tuxedo. She grinned like a little girl and quickly grabbed her purse, practically skipping down her stairs to meet him at the front door.

“Hello, handsome,” she said as she opened the door and propped herself against the frame.

“Hello to yourself, beautiful,” he said as he held out his hand for her.

“Where is our vehicular transportation?” she asked with a smile.

“Right over…there,” he pointed back a couple of buildings to a small black limousine, parked on the side of the street.

“You’re kidding,” she said, the smile disappearing from her face.

“Nope,” he said. “Got to arrive in style.”

“You’re kidding!” she repeated. She had never been in a limousine before; not for her high school prom, not for any of the fancy events that she and Roy had gone to, not even for her own wedding.

“You’ve never been in a limo before, I take it?” he asked as he pulled her out of her doorway and towards the vehicle.

“Never,” she replied as she dumbly followed.

“Not even for your own wedding?” it was as if he was reading her thoughts.

“Nope.”

She stood on the curb as he stepped down into the gutter and opened up the door.

“After you,” he said with a sweeping motion of his hand. The smile returned to her face and she slid into the back seat, only to be surprised by Michael and Ryan sitting across from her with their respective dates.

“Hot!” Michael exclaimed, which immediately earned him a slap on his hand from his date and turned Pam’s face a bright shade of pink.

“Michael, be nice,” Jim said as he slid into the seat next to Pam and stretched his arms out over the back of the seat, “it’s her first black tie event in New York City…right?” Pam nodded with a smile as she resisted the urge to lean against his side or lean her head back just a little bit farther so her neck would be touching the sleeve of his jacket.

“I’m just saying,” Michael said, “if you dressed like this when we eat lunch…wowza.”

“Michael!” his date exclaimed angrily, earning him yet another slap on his hand as Ryan laughed softly.

“So what should I expect from this gala?” Pam asked, genuinely curious.

“A lot of noise, a cash bar and lots of pretentious rich people,” Ryan replied.

“Cash bar…psh,” Michael chided. “For the amount of money the companies have to pay to get a seat at this thing, you would think they could at least make the booze free.”

The rest of the ride is lost in an intense conversation between Ryan and Michael about the good and bad aspects of the dinner gala; with a small interjection from Jim every once in a while to egg them on further. Pam however, lost her train of thought after only a couple of minutes as she watched the city go by through the tinted window of the limousine and the unmistakable feeling of Jim’s hand on top of hers until they arrived at their final destination.

**

She felt as if she was trapped in a sea of people. Jim pulled her along, his arm around her waist the entire time and she wasn’t really sure if it was because he wanted his arm around her or if he was afraid that she was going to become lost and scared. She was certain that if she felt his hand leave the top of her hip that she would lose her mind because as she looked around at familiar faces of people she’s never met before she felt far too overwhelmed to enjoy or notice anything else.

She took a sigh of relief when they made it past the cameras outside without anyone from the media asking for a picture but only felt overwhelmed again as they entered the dining area where they would spend the next three or four hours. The room was enormous, big enough to fit several thousand people – and she was certain that there had to be several thousand people present.

Jim led the two of them to their table, and she was amazed how she knew it was their table and not someone else’s since they all looked the same. All the tables were draped with cream colored tablecloths and elaborate flower centerpieces filled with spring flowers and golden branches that towered four feet over every table.

“I feel like I’m at a wedding,” she whispered to Jim as the two of them sat down in their seats.

“Is it too much?” he asked nervously.

“Did you plan this?”

“No.”

“Did your company plan this?” she asked, though she assumed that if they had, they would be sitting at a table a little closer to the stage.

“Oh heavens no,” he replied quickly. “I think I would have the decency to think of something a little more tasteful.” She flashed him a look of confusion. He sounded bitter, he seemed kind of bitter. She didn’t know him that well, so for all she knew, he could have hated black tie events…but it didn’t quite seem like that was the case.

**

She was amazed at how tipsy she could feel from two vodka tonics and she was also amazed at how much funnier Michael seemed to become after she had allowed herself a little bit of alcohol.

She felt like applauding herself for making it through the appetizer course, the soup course, the dinner course, the cheese course and finally the dessert course without once yawning at the mind-numbingly boring award presentations. By the time she started working on her third vodka tonic that Jim had generously purchased for her, she was quite enjoying herself and the ten other people – excluding Jim – that were sitting at the advertising company’s table. She even started to ignore the fact that Jim kept getting up and leaving the table, though she did start to notice that every time he returned he seemed a little quieter, a little more reserved, and maybe a little angrier. It wasn’t until he came darting back to the table for what Pam thought was maybe the fifth time in the past hour and bumped her knee a little too hard with his own that she began to suspect that something was up.

“Jim is everything okay?” she asked as she leaned towards him, only murmuring the question in his ear so only he could hear.

“How much do you know about me?” he asked suddenly as he turned to her. She was taken aback by the forwardness of the question and shook her head slightly to try and figure out where he was going with it.

“I guess…not much,” she replied with more of a shrug than a concrete answer.

“I don’t think that’s fair,” he said and she smiled a little, but it disappeared when he wasn’t smiling back at her.

“What do you…”

“It’s just that I know everything about you,” he said. “I know that you have a mother and a younger sister and that your dad died from cancer and that you were engaged for nine years or some ridiculous amount of time and you know nothing of me.” Her eyes widened a little bit.

“I guess that’s all true,” she said slowly. He downed the rest of the scotch in front of him and turned to Pam again.

“You want to go outside and get some fresh air?” he asked. She nodded earnestly.

 

He pulled her out onto an empty balcony that overlooked the New York City skyline. The night was warm and from up high, she felt a new sense of liberation. The air felt so much cleaner than it did down on the street, the air smelled sweeter – maybe it was the lilies from inside the party, she relished in the feeling only briefly before she realized that she wasn’t alone and that Jim was standing dangerously close to her.

“What do you want to know about me?” he asked.

“I don’t know…” she replied slowly as she stepped over to a marble bench near the ledge and sat down, folding her hands in her lap.

“Anything,” he said.

“Anything?” He nodded. Her mind drifted back to the evening that he had helped her create the glorious work of art that had gotten her an ‘A’ for her final exam and she smiled. “Tell me about your life. Where were you born? What is your family like?”

“I was born Poughkeepsie, New York in 1979.”

“No way, you’re lying,” she said.

“Completely serious,” he said.

“When’s your birthday?” she asked eagerly.

“The third of September,” he replied. “Yours?”

“Three days after Christmas,” she replied with a smile.

“Oh, well, my family had already moved away from New York at that point,” he continued. “We moved when I was only a couple of months old when my father got a job in Annapolis, Maryland. Of course, my father didn’t like to stay at one job for more than a few years, so when I was six, we moved to Boston. He didn’t like Boston – for whatever reason – and he was offered a really horrible job in Scranton, Pennsylvania.”

“You lived in Scranton?” Pam asked, he nodded. “No way, did we go to school together?”

“I was home schooled,” he replied with a smile. “But of course, then we moved again when I reached high school and I spent the rest of my teenage years in Hartford, Connecticut.”

“You sound like quite the nomad,” Pam said.

“Well, my father died my senior year of high school, and that kind of set me free again,” Jim said quietly.

“Oh…right,” she said quietly. “So where did you go to college?”

“Went to Boston for college,” he said, “I really liked it there when I was a kid, even if my parents didn’t. And so college was college, I went to NYU for a graduate degree and then here I am.” Pam nodded.

“What about your family?” she asked. “Mother…another mother?” She giggled.

“No, mother, deceased father, a brother and a sister,” he replied. She nodded again.

“Personal life?” she asked. “Any saucy girlfriends?” She was about to laugh to herself, when she noticed that his face had completely changed with the question. “What? Did I say something wrong?”

“No…no,” he said quietly.

“Okay…” she said as he stayed silent for a few moments. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Blue,” he said quickly, she smiled.

“What’s your favorite food?”

“Grilled cheese sandwiches.”

“Really?” there was something completely endearing to her that his favorite food was grilled cheese sandwiches.

“Of course, they’re delicious,” he said, the smile returning.

“Okay,” she thought a little more, “what’s your favorite thing to do on the weekends?”

“What weekends?”

“Any weekend, normal, typical weekend,” she said.

“Sleep until eleven in the morning, eat pancakes and walk around Central Park,” he said.

“How New York of you.”

“Keep the questions coming,” he said.

“Okay,” she thought for a few moments. “Where is your favorite place that you’ve traveled to?”

“Paris,” he replied quickly.

“Paris?” she suddenly forgot every question that she was going to ask him. “You’ve been to Paris?”

“Yeah, I went with…” he quickly stopped himself. “A couple years ago.”

“Did you go to the Louvre?” she asked, hardly noticing the falter in his voice.

“Yes.”

“What was it like?”

“I don’t think these questions are about me…” he said with a sly grin.

“Sorry, it’s just that I’ve wanted to go to the Louvre my whole life – the art and all,” she replied shyly.

“It’s enormous,” he said. “You could spend three days inside of it and not even see it all.” She nodded vigorously. “You should really go someday.”

“I want to,” she said quietly. She turned her head to the side and took a deep breath.

“Any other questions?” he asked.

“Kind of,” she replied quietly and slowly.

“Go for it.”

“What’s wrong with you tonight?”

“Excuse me?”

“You seem…different. I mean, I realize that I don’t know you that well, and we really haven’t spent that much time together so that I can really know your mannerisms and what-not, but you seem…off,” she said carefully.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he looked down into his lap.

“No, it’s fine, it’s just…I’m confused,” she said quietly. “It’s like you’re hiding something or skirting around something.” He smiled weakly and nodded.

“You know me better than you think,” he said.

“So what is it?”

“I…uh…when I was in graduate school,” he began, “I met this woman. This wonderful, quick, brilliant woman,” Pam nodded. “And we got married after six months together.”

“You’re married?” Pam asked with a shocked gasp.

“No, no, not at all. We divorced another six months later,” he replied quickly.

“Oh.”

“Anyway, um…today would have been our anniversary,” he said quietly. “And I…I shouldn’t be dragging you into this.”

“Into what?” she asked as she leaned towards him.

“It’s just that you’re the first woman that I’ve actually…liked since the divorce,” he replied quietly, he thought maybe he was completely skirting around the issue. “And…is that weird for you to hear?”

“No,” she said as she shook her head and smiled warmly.

“Good,” he said with a sigh. He looked up at Pam and then looked beyond her shoulder and his glance quickly dashed back towards Pam. “Do you want to get out of here?”

“Here the balcony or here the gala?” she asked.

“Here the gala,” he replied. “And the balcony as well, I suppose.”

“Sure,” she said with a smile.

“Will you be crushed if we can’t take the limousine?” he asked.

“Why can’t we take the limousine?” she asked.

“I don’t want to leave Michael and Ryan stranded,” he replied. She smiled and nodded.

“A taxi is fine,” she said, “as long as I don’t have to ride in it alone.”

“Deal,” he stood up and pulled her up alongside of him. As they made their way back into the party, she realized that his arm was around her a little tighter than it had been before and he kept looking over his shoulder.

As they made their way out of the main entrance, his hand slipped along the small of her back and he took her hand into his. As she slipped through the door behind him, she took a glance over her shoulder to see a woman standing near the bar with a glass of wine in her hands staring right at her. She suddenly felt an unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach and wondered if there was more that Jim wasn’t telling her.

July 27, 2006

She didn’t want to leave work, not today. It was unbearably hot outside. How could it get this hot anyway? She didn’t want to go home. She lived on the third floor, she was barely able to catch a breeze through her windows, she didn’t have air conditioning and the only relief that she had to look forward to was the small fan located at the foot of her bed that would be her only cooling-off that night.

“You could spend the night at my apartment, it’s air conditioned,” Dwight said as she grabbed a couple of plates from the shelf between the kitchen and dining room.

“No thank you, Dwight,” she said as she swore she heard a sigh of relief from Angela who was standing right behind her.

“It’s cool,” he said.

“No thank you, Dwight,” she repeated. “I think I’d rather sweat in my own bed.”

“Air conditioning,” he said in a sing-song voice.

“Dwight, you’re really creepy sometimes,” she said as she turned around and went to give some patrons their food.

“I don’t understand why you do these things,” Angela hissed at him as soon as Pam was out of earshot.

“What things?”

“Inviting other female employees to your apartment,” she said quietly. “I thought that we were…”

“We are,” he said in a soothingly cool voice. “Pam could have slept on the couch.” Angela huffed loudly and turned around with two salads in her hands.

“If I had air conditioning, Dwight, I would be sleeping at my apartment tonight,” she said quietly. “Unfortunately, I do not and I will be over at ten this evening,” she said as she briskly walked away.

 

He entered at nine o’clock; they would be closed within the hour if they were lucky.

“Jim’s here,” Angela said as she walked past Pam, polishing crystal glasses behind the bar.

“What?” Pam asked as she looked up towards the door. “Oh. Seat him in my section.”

“We’ve closed your section,” Angela replied with an eye roll.

“Seat him in my section,” Pam said firmly.

“It’s not a good idea to date patrons,” Angela said quietly.

“We’re not dating,” Pam said in a hushed voice, “and it’s also not a good idea to date your co-workers.” Angela’s eyes widened, but instead of arguing any further, she quickly walked to Jim standing in the door and led him over to an empty section of the restaurant.

Pam quickly finished polishing a crystal glass and hurried over to where Jim was sitting alone, looking over the dinner menu.

“What can I get for you?” she asked, appearing at his side.

“I didn’t realize that you had a different menu for dinner,” he replied quietly.

“Yeah, Dwight likes to mix things up throughout the day,” she said and she swore that she let a wink slip across her face.

“Too bad, I have to try something new,” he said with a sigh.

“New things are good sometimes,” she said earnestly. “Should I give you a few minutes?”

“No, I know what I want,” he said with a smile.

“Go ahead.”

“I want you to come home with me tonight,” he said quickly. She dropped her pen on the floor and her mouth dropped open in shock.

“What?” she gasped.

“That probably sounded a lot raunchier than I intended it,” he said with an impish smile. “It’s just, I know that you don’t have air conditioning, and it’s like, 100 some degrees outside right now…”

“I think I’ll be okay,” she said with a weak smile, although she really wanted him to beg.

“No, please,” he said touching her hand slightly. “I just want to do something nice for my friend.”

“I don’t know…” though she knew exactly what she wanted.

“I have a spare bedroom,” he said with a hopeful smile. “It’s a cool 70 degrees in there right now. You can’t turn down something that great.” She laughed and dipped her head down slightly.

“You’re the last person I have to serve tonight,” she said with a smile. “When you’re finished eating, we can go.”

“Okay then,” he said, “can I tell you a secret?”

“Anything.”

“I’m not actually hungry, I ate about an hour ago.”

“So what are you doing here?” she asked.

“Asking you to come home with me to my chilly abode,” he replied.

“I’ll get you a cup of coffee,” she said as she turned and made her way back towards the kitchen.

 

Jim didn’t order anything to eat – much to Dwight’s chagrin – and he and Pam left the restaurant shortly after 9:30 that evening. They took a poorly air conditioned cab back to Pam’s place so she could pick up a change of clothes and her toothbrush, then hopped into another poorly air conditioned cab and made it back across the city to Jim’s perfectly air conditioned townhouse.

“So…” she said as she stood awkwardly in the doorway.

“Did I ever give you the full tour of my place?” he asked with a wry smile.

“I don’t think that you did, no,” she replied.

“Well then, we have an agenda,” he said. He looked around the space they were standing in. “Well, there’s not a whole lot to explain here.”

“I have seen this part,” she said with a smile.

“Of course, here we have the kitchen,” he pointed to his left where his state of the art kitchen was, “and that leads into the dining room, which we are currently standing in.”

“Oooh,” Pam said a little too sarcastically.

“And if you look over to your right,” he said as he pointed to his right. “You will see the magnificent living room.”

“Very, very nice,” she said with a nod.

“Thank you, I decorated it all myself,” he said.

“Really? You decorated it all yourself?” she asked and he nodded. “I actually am kind of impressed.”

“Oh please,” he said. “You were impressed anyway.”

“True, I can’t lie,” she said.

“Now, if you will follow me, I will take you up the stairs,” he said as he started to walk towards the living room. “Oh, there’s also a nice little bathroom tucked in there.” He pointed towards a little niche in the wall just beyond the staircase.

“Very nice,” she said as she started to follow him up the carpeted steps to the second floor. “I can’t believe that you have a two story townhouse.”

“Why?”

“It’s just so…domestic,” she replied, not really certain if that was the word she was looking for.

“Well, I do love baking cookies on the weekend,” he said as he reached the top step.

“I’m sure.”

“So here, Miss Beesly, we have the second floor,” his arms spread wide and he turned a little. “As you can see, right in front of me is the second floor bathroom, and right next to said bathroom, is a rather handsome linen closet.”

“I’m seething with jealousy,” she said with a grin.

“On your left is the master bedroom, also known as the chamber of love…” Pam giggled loudly. “And to your right is where you will be spending this evening, the guest room.”

“How many people do you have that sleep in the guest room?” she asked.

“Not many,” he replied. “I don’t get many overnight guests.”

“What a shame.”

“Well, I usually don’t offer many incentives.”

“Incentives?”

“Yeah, you know, breakfast in bed, clean sheets…”

“I hope there are clean sheets on that bed,” Pam said as she crossed her arms. “And you know, I was expecting some breakfast in bed.”

“Oh, excuse me,” he said with a laugh, “I’ll try and make sure to get up extra early to make you pancakes.”

“Will you make me pancakes?” she asked hopefully.

“Really?”

“Uh huh,” she said with an eager nod.

“Well, I can’t say no to an eager face like that,” he said as he ran his finger quickly along the bottom of her chin. “Come on, let’s go back downstairs. There’s really not that much to see after all.” She nodded and happily skipped down the stairs and quickly went into his living room and sat down on the couch.

“Do you want anything to eat?” he asked as he walked towards the kitchen. “Have you eaten dinner yet?”

“I had a few little bites to eat the restaurant,” she said with a smile.

“Oh no, Pam, do not tell me that you are one of those waitresses that enjoys picking food off of the customer’s plates after they leave,” Jim said as he opened up the door of his refrigerator.

“No, not at all,” she said with a small chuckle, “but Dwight does it all the time.”

“Are you kidding?” he asked as he pulled a hunk of cheese from a shelf of the fridge.

“Not at all,” she replied. “I think it’s kind of gross, but he’ll go for the tasty leftovers all the time.”

“Oh disgusting,” he said as he pulled a cutting board away from the wall.

“What are you making?” she asked, noticing the cheese in his hand and saw that he was getting a knife from the butcher’s block on his counter.

“Jim Halpert’s famous grilled cheese,” he said proudly.

“Ooh, do you want to make one for me?” she asked as she cocked her head to the side and rested her chin on the back of his sofa.

“I thought you weren’t hungry,” he said.

“I never said I wasn’t hungry,” she said. “I just said that I had had a couple little bites here and there. I don’t think that I can refuse Jim Halpert’s famous grilled cheese.”

“You’re right, you can’t,” he said as he sliced away at the block of cheese. “Do you want something to drink?”

“What do you have?”

“Coke, some juice, water, coffee, tea, wine, hard liquor,” he replied.

“I’ll just have a glass of ice water,” she said.

“Do you want to watch television?” he asked as he pulled a couple slices of bread from a bread box.

“I guess that would be okay,” she replied with a shrug.

“The remote’s up on the cabinet below the television there,” he said with a nod.

“Plasma screen TV?” she asked as she looked up at the wall.

“Of course,” he replied as he started to butter the slices of bread.

“Swanky.”

 

She didn’t turn on the television, she couldn’t quite figure out how to get the cable to work. It was okay; she wanted to just sit quietly with Jim anyway. He made two grilled cheese sandwiches and brought them to where Pam was sitting on his sofa.

“Which one do you want? Blue plate or pink plate?”

“Why do you have pink plates?”

“No reason, they’re pretty,” he said with a shrug.

“I’ll take the pink one,” she said as she took the plate into her lap and made some room for Jim at the other end of the sofa.

“You know, I normally don’t let my guests eat in the living room,” he said with a wink, “especially on the sofa.”

“Oh, we can go sit at the table,” she said as she quickly set her uneaten sandwich half back on the plate.

“No no, it’s fine,” he said with a smile, “I trust you not to get butter grease on the leather though.”

“I’ll try to be clean,” she said as she picked the sandwich back up and took a bite.

“So?”

“It’s good,” she said as she happily munched away.

“Just good?” he asked as he took a bite of his own.

“Oh, wait, no, sorry,” she took another bite. “Oh my god, Jim! This is the most amazing thing I have ever eaten! It’s like…” she quickly scanned her mind, “sex!” He had to cover his mouth as he laughed and tried not to choke on the grilled cheese in his mouth.

“Best response to date, I think,” he said as his laughter started to subside. Pam could feel her face burning red from the comment she had made, and she quickly turned her face downward and took a couple more small bites. He noticed her sudden recoil and smiled.

“I’m glad that you like it,” he said quietly as he glanced out the window to the summer night.

They sat in an awkward silence for a few moments, neither of them entirely acknowledging the other. Just sitting, eating their grilled cheese sandwiches in the pleasant glow of Jim’s living room.

“Roy never made me dinner…or anything,” Pam said quietly, sadly.

“I had an ulterior motive for you to come over tonight,” Jim said quickly changing the subject.

“What?”

“It wasn’t just to get you out of that hot apartment of yours,” he said quietly.

“What? Are you going to kiss me or something?” she asked with a small smile, but her smile immediately disappeared when she saw the seriousness of his face. “I…I was kidding…” she kind of trailed off, “…mostly.” She shrugged and looked away.

“No…” they sat through another awkward silence and Jim sighed loudly.

“What’s the matter?” Pam asked, her eyebrow furrowed. She set her empty pink plate on Jim’s coffee table and inched a little closer to him.

“I’ve kind of skirted around this, and I’ve had a while to tell you…”

“Tell me what?” she asked, she had worry written all over her face. She leaned a little closer as he finished off the last bits of his own sandwich and he set his blue plate on the coffee table as well.

“I’m…” he scanned her face. He wanted to push her back into the leather cushions on his couch and kiss her and lay there with her. He had a look on his face that was completely unreadable to Pam – she had never seen this side of him before.

“Do you want to kiss me?” she asked quizzically. It had been so long since a man had made a move on her that she started to try and think what it had been like and if Jim’s behavior was normal. He shook his head slowly, almost thoughtfully and started to roll the hem of his shirt around in his fingers.

“Jim…” she insisted. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m leaving,” he said quietly.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I’m leaving, in two days,” he replied quietly. “I’m going to China for a month.”

“China?” she asked. He nodded. “You’re kidding.”

“No,” he replied as he shook his head.

“Well that’s…” she thought of all the words she could use to end that sentence: awful, cruel, why didn’t you tell me this sooner? “That’s cool.” Not exactly the words she had been expecting to say. He nodded and moved just a little closer to her, his thigh was touching her knee and it seemed painfully evident that they were that close together with no one else around them.

“I don’t…” he wasn’t speaking so she tried to find words to fill the chasm that had suddenly opened up between the two of them.

He cut off her words. His hand went to the side of her neck and he pulled her head towards his, his lips meeting hers somewhere in the middle. He heard her gasp slightly and he quickly closed his eyes, relishing in the touch of her mouth against his. Her fingers danced along his forearm, she pulled his hand away from her neck and she pulled her lips away from his slowly.

“Wow…” he barely whispered as his eyes quickly scanned her face. They sat in a hushed silence for another bitterly long moment, just staring at each other, trying to somehow read the other’s thoughts.

“I hope you have a good time,” Pam said quietly.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I should have told you sooner, I really should have but…”

“No, it’s fine,” she said. “I mean…China, wow. That sounds like an awesome place to go to.”

“It’s business,” he said with a shrug.

“So you’re going to be gone for…”

“A month,” he said quietly. “I’ll be back September first.”

“Two days before your birthday,” she said with a weak smile. He smiled back at her.

“You remember.”

“I remember all my friends’ birthdays,” she said. “Hey, I’ll throw you a party when you get back.”

“Really?”

“Certainly! I don’t know where, and I’m not really sure when since I’ll be back in school at that time, but…yes, I will throw you a birthday party.”

“You are awesome,” he said with a grin that quickly faded away again. “I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“Well,” she said with a shrug and a sigh, “if you had told me sooner, I just would have had more time to think, ‘Well crap, my best friend is leaving for a month’.”

“Yeah…” he said quietly. “Wait, what?”

“What?”

“I’m your best friend?”

“I…I guess,” she said with another small shrug. “I mean, I can’t really think of anyone else that would fit the profile well.” She thought briefly, “I mean, there’s Kelly and Angela. But I think Angela thinks that I’m a sinner and Kelly just kind of talks too much sometimes. And we’re kind of different.”

“I’ve noticed,” Jim said with a chuckle as his arm stretched out along the back of the sofa. Pam looked along the side of his body and felt herself gravitating towards that empty spot along his side.

“I’m going to do something…” she said, wondering why she was even talking. “Something I haven’t done in a long time.” She smiled and yawned as she leaned against his side and nestled her head against the round part of Jim’s shoulder. His arm came around her shoulder and she looked up into his face.

“I think I’m going to miss you,” he said quietly and she smiled.

“I think I’m going to miss you too,” she said as she looked back down and closed her eyes slowly. “I’m especially going to miss you if we have another heat wave.”

He laughed softly as he lowered his head to the top of hers. He happily inhaled the scent of her hair and kissed her very softly on the forehead.

“I’ll bring you back a souvenir,” he said quietly and within only a few minutes, he realized that she had fallen asleep in his arms.

September 2, 2006

She had practically skipped to work the past few days. She hadn’t heard from him in a week or two, but it was okay because she was going to see him today – no, tonight. She had bought a brand new outfit and she had made sure before coming to the restaurant to work that she looked perfect.

Four hours into her shift mid-afternoon, she started to feel weary. The look of perfection she had achieved before stepping outside of her apartment that morning was starting to wear off from bad customers. She swore that the only thing that was going to keep her going through the rest of the day was simply knowing that she would be seeing him when she finally left work.

It was a little after seven and she had just finished wiping down a table. She quickly walked back behind the bar to place the dirty rag into the cleansing dishwater close to the kitchen. She heard a gasp come from Kelly and she looked up. Kelly was staring at the door and before she could say anything, she froze where she stood.

He was at the restaurant, but he wasn’t alone. Pam felt the color drain from her cheeks and she suddenly felt every little effort she had put into her appearance leave her body. Every last little hope she felt for this day to end well vanished as she saw the somewhat familiar woman and her arm hooked through Jim’s.

Angela greeted them coldly and Pam stood hidden behind a stack of boxes, begging and praying that Angela wouldn’t seat the two in her section.

“Damn it!” she cursed quietly just as Kelly approached her. “Kelly, oh Kelly, I need a huge favor.”

“What is it, Pam?” Kelly asked.

“I need you to wait on one of my tables,” Pam replied in a hushed voice.

“Which one?” Pam pointed inconspicuously towards the table that Angela had just seated Jim and the woman at.

“Oh my god, Pam,” Kelly said in a hushed whisper herself. “No, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“That woman hates me! No…wait…I hate her!”

“You know her?”

“Oh my god, you don’t?”

“No!”

Angela briskly walked past the two of them.

“It’s your table, Pam,” she said quickly.

“No it’s not, it’s Kelly’s.”

“No!”

“Go!”

Kelly knew that fighting with Pam over this would be a losing battle so she quickly mustered up her energy and walked over to the table, a fake smile plastered onto her face.

Jim was facing away from the bar, so Pam wasn’t able to see his face, but she was able to clearly focus in on the woman he was with. She looked familiar, but Pam couldn’t quite face where she could have seen her before. Was she famous? No…probably not. She was certainly pretty enough to be a celebrity, she was devastatingly gorgeous. Sweeping, long brown hair, small, thin body frame, darker skin, gorgeous face and she was dressed so…professionally.

“I hate her!” Kelly exclaimed quietly as she came back behind the bar and walked by Pam. “I swear, if she doesn’t like it here, she should just go somewhere else.” She walked over to the kitchen window and placed their order before returning to Pam’s side.

“This must suck for you,” Kelly said.

“Uh, yeah,” Pam said glumly as she picked up a crystal glass from the shelf and began to polish it so she had something to keep her hands busy.

“So what do you think they’re doing here together?” Kelly asked.

“It looks like a date to me,” Pam replied, trying to fight back tears that she couldn’t quite explain. She and Jim had never established a relationship between themselves. At best they were close friends. So what if he had come back from China with a new girlfriend? Good for him.

“Oh my god, Pam, you don’t know who she is?” Kelly asked.

“I told you just a second ago that I didn’t,” Pam replied.

“Pam.”

“Kelly.”

“Pam, that is Karen Filipelli,” Kelly said, Pam only looked at Kelly with a blank face. “Oh my god. She is like, only the vice president of the biggest advertising company in New York City.”

“Oh,” Pam said glumly, but her mind quickly started to reel. She was the woman that was at the dinner gala in June, she was the woman who had stared at Pam and Jim as they exited the room…

“And…”

“There’s more?”

“Yes,” Kelly replied quietly, pulling Pam close, “she is Jim’s ex-wife.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“What the fuck is he doing here with his ex-wife?” Pam asked, maybe a little louder than she should have because the moment she said it, Karen’s eyes shot up towards the two of them.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like her,” Kelly replied. “I don’t care how successful she is or how many celebrities she knows…”

“I can’t be here,” Pam said quickly. “I need to go out back for a few moments.”

“Pam!” Kelly exclaimed loudly as Pam began to walk away and quickly run for the back hallway. “Pam!”

Kelly looked over at Jim and Karen sitting at the table Angela had seated them at. When Jim looked over his shoulder, he made eye contact with Kelly.

“What?” he mouthed to her. Kelly shrugged and pointed towards the hallway.

 

“I’ve been looking forward to him getting back for a month, Dwight! A month!” Pam cried loudly as Dwight sat on the back step behind the restaurant, holding the door open. “I bought a new shirt, I made myself look really nice.”

“You do look really nice,” Dwight said casually.

“Thanks but…” she kicked a rock against the brick wall she was facing. “Fuck!”

“You know…”

“And it’s his ex-wife! Dwight! She’s fucking gorgeous!”

“She is pretty good looking,” he said with a casual shrug.

“God, I can’t believe…” she shook her head as she kicked her foot against the dumpster. “Why’d he do it?”

“What did he do?”

“Bring her here!”

“Maybe they’re just discussing business.”

“Or maybe they’re getting back together.”

“I think you’re really jumping to the wrong conclusions here, Pam.”

“Do you think she went to China with him?”

“Possible.”

“Do you think they reconciled their differences in China and they’re back together? They’re going to give their marriage a second chance? Oh fuck, they’re going to give their marriage a second chance…”

“Pam, you’re overreacting.”

“You know, we kissed before he left. He invited me over to his place a couple of days before he left. I stayed the night there because he has central air and it was a lot more comfortable than my apartment. We kissed. And we fell asleep together on his couch.” Dwight nodded along. “I woke up at two in the morning that night and all I could think about was how much I couldn’t wait for him to get back and how wonderful it felt to be around someone again. After…well, you know, after my own wedding...”

“Pam…”

“And then he left for China and we spoke a few times over the phone while he was there…he didn’t sound any different…”

“Pam?”

“What?”

“I think you need to ask him what’s up.”

“You think?”

He nodded, “I can only get you so far here.”

“Fucking Karen Flipillelli.”

“Filipelli.”

“Whatever.”

“Come back inside, you have tables to serve,” Dwight said. Pam glumly made her way back to the door. When she crossed the threshold she was surprised by Dwight’s arm around her shoulder.

“What?”

“She broke his heart, Pam,” Dwight said calmly.

“How do you know?”

“A restaurant manager knows their patrons well,” Dwight replied casually. “Sometimes a little too well.” Pam smiled slightly. “If he went back to her, he would be a complete fool.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said. “And you know, I don’t usually encourage my employees to date customers, especially loyal customers like Jim Halpert, but…I think that he would be a complete fool to not choose you over her.” Pam’s smile widened a little and she took a deep breath.

“Thank you, Dwight.”

“You’re welcome, Pam,” he said. “Now get back to work.”

 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that I was coming here with her,” Jim said woefully as he ran into Pam in the back hallway. “I’m sorry that we came here in the first place.” Pam nodded, she didn’t really know how to respond; she just wanted to know what he was doing with her.

“So she’s your ex-wife?” she asked, not exactly what she had wanted to ask.

“Yeah,” he replied glumly.

“What are you doing with her in the first place?” she asked quietly. She looked over his shoulder to try and see the dining room. “Is she still here?”

“No, she left,” Jim replied quietly.

“So what were you doing with her?” Pam asked. She hated how much she sounded like a jealous girlfriend, but she couldn’t help herself. She hadn’t seen him in a month and seeing him appear at the restaurant with a woman that she considered far better looking, and far more successful than herself; well, it made her a little self-conscious.

“She’s just…she’s trying to get more money from me,” he said with a sad shrug, “and I’m trying everything I can possibly do to settle it out of court.”

“Oh,” she breathed it more than she said it.

“Anyway, she had been trying to get in contact with me the entire time I was in Beijing and when her lawyer contacted me last week as I was getting ready to leave, I figured that I better return her messages,” he said. “So I called her and she said that she needed to meet with me as soon as I returned.”

“Why did you come here, though?” Pam asked.

“She hates the restaurant,” he replied. “I figured that if I had to meet her somewhere, the least I could do was find someplace she doesn’t find enjoyable. And I’m good enough friends with the employees at the restaurant here that I figured I’d be in good company if she lashed out at me.”

“Oh,” she nodded again.

“Come on, Pam,” he said as he reached out and touched her arm. She wanted to recoil, but instead she savored the feeling of his warm palm against the sleeve of her shirt. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again for the past month. I’m sorry that this had to happen…” She sighed and looked up in his eyes thoughtfully.

“I’ve missed you,” she said sadly.

“I’ve missed you too,” he said with a weak smile. She nodded and lowered her eyes again. “When do you get off work?”

“In an hour or so,” she said quietly. “Depending on when the last two people I’m waiting on finish their meals.”

“You want to go back to your place when you’re finished here?” he asked.

“What are you going to do in the meantime?” she asked.

“I can have a drink or two at the bar,” he replied with a shrug. “Regale you and all of your co-workers of tales from the Orient.” She smiled and looked him in the eyes again.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I’m glad you say that because I have a couple of things for you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I found some pretty great souvenirs for you.” He winked at her. “You have something to look forward to.” His hand ran down her arm and briefly lingered around her fingers before he turned and headed back to the dining room.

September 3, 2006

Jim spent the night on Pam’s futon the previous evening. He had walked home with her after work as he had promised, but once they arrived and he was sitting on her comfortable furniture, he completely crashed. The fact that he was horribly jet-lagged, and the impending stress of his divorce coming back to haunt him made him incredibly fatigued and he had fallen asleep on Pam’s legs as the two of them watched television. He hadn’t even had a chance to give her the souvenir that he had purchased for her while in China.

He left early in the morning the next day, kissing Pam on her temple as she slept in and leaving a note that read:

I’m sorry I had to leave so early – work.
I’ll give you a call later on in the afternoon and I promise I’ll come back over later this evening. I still have souvenirs for you!
Thank you for letting me crash on your couch.
I’ll talk to you later.
-J

 

Since it was a Sunday, she had nothing better to do. She wasn’t working, she certainly didn’t have class and she was feeling lazy so she didn’t want to walk very far. There was a cool breeze drifting in through her windows and there were lots of children out playing in the park across the street. She pulled out her art easel, a large piece of watercolor paper and went to work.

She spent most of her day painting, taking a break a couple of times to snack, but for the better part of the day, she spent her time sitting in front of her window and watching the children play outside.

By five o’clock, she still hadn’t heard from Jim and she was starting to wonder if he was going to call her at all. Rain clouds were starting to move in and by quarter after, the park had cleared out and there was a severe weather watch being broadcasted over the local television stations.

 

She jumped when her phone rang at the same time a loud crash of thunder boomed overhead.

“Hello?” she asked, not even bothering to check the caller I.D. before she picked up.

“Hey, I’m sorry it took me all day to call,” he replied on the other line.

“Jim! It’s okay,” she said with a smile.

“So I’ve actually been out of work for a while, trying to figure out if I should come over or not,” he said and she could sense the smile that he inevitably had on his face.

“I don’t think there’s any if about it,” she said as she kicked a dirty shirt into a basket of dirty clothes sitting next to her bed.

“Good, because I’ve been standing outside of your apartment for the past fifteen minutes trying to figure out if I should ring the buzzer or not,” he said.

“What? Are you kidding?”

“No.”

“I’m unlocking the door right now, I can’t even imagine how wet you must be,” she said as she looked out her window at the rain pouring down.

“Thanks.” She quickly rushed to her door and clicked the ‘unlock’ on the intercom to let Jim up.

She was always endlessly amazed at how fast he came up her stairs. She had just walked over to the stove to take off a boiling kettle of water for tea when there was a knock at her door. She set the kettle aside and walked to the door.

“I swear, every time I come here, you’re dirty!” he said as he looked her up and down. She was wearing a pair of cut-offs that were splattered with paints, a gray tank top and red apron-like piece of clothing over the tank top that was just as paint-splattered as her shorts and legs were. “You must be the messiest painter, ever.”

“Creativity knows no cleanliness,” she said as she walked back over into her small kitchen area to pour the boiling water into a large green mug. “Do you want some tea?”

“No, I’m fine,” he said.

“You’re also soaked,” she noted.

“I know, I kind of wish I had a change of clothes,” he said.

“You can go into the bathroom and dry off if you want,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t really think I have anything that would fit you though, so you may have to deal with some wet jeans for the rest of the evening.” She frowned.

“I’ll probably deal with it,” he said as he started walking towards her bathroom.

“I’ll see what I can find for you,” she said. “Why didn’t you buzz me when it started raining?” she asked as he ducked behind the bathroom door.

“I don’t really know, honestly,” he said as he peeled the shirt over his head out of her line of sight. “Do you have a large t-shirt I could wear?”

“Yeah, probably,” she said as she walked over towards a bin of t-shirts near her bed. “How large are you looking?”

“Something larger than you’re wearing right now,” he said and she laughed softly as she sorted to the bottom of the bin and found a gray t-shirt that she hadn’t seen in months. She walked over to the doorway of the bathroom and avoided looking around the corner of the door – even though she kind of wanted to.

“I hope this fits,” she said as she blindly waved it around, waiting for his hand to catch it.

“Thanks,” he said taking it from her hands. As she backed away from the door, she caught the slightest glimpse of the top of his bare chest from his reflection in the mirror.

“I’m sorry, I really wish that I had some bottoms that you could wear…”

“It’s okay…”

“Wait!” she reached down into another bin of clothing near her bed and quickly returned to the bathroom doorframe.

“What is it?” he asked as he poked his head around the door. She looked in slightly and could see a small pool of water standing in the middle of her bathroom floor from water dripping off of Jim’s clothing.

“Here,” she said with a big grin on her face as she handed him a pair of blue checkered pajama pants.

“You think these are going to fit me?” he asked speculatively as he took the pants from her.

“They’re not mine,” she replied with a smile as she walked back into the area of her living room, grabbed her cup of tea from the counter and went to sit on her futon.

“Pam, should I be worried that you seem to have other men’s clothing in your apartment?” he asked as he walked out of her bathroom, looking like he was ready for bed dressed in a gray t-shirt that was too big for him and blue checkered pajama pants that were hanging around his hips.

“I stole them from Roy before I left,” she said with a shrug. “They were my comfort clothes.”

“Ah, so that’s why there is a football mascot on the back of this shirt,” he said thoughtfully. She giggled as she took a sip of her tea and turned her attention to the weatherman on the television.

“So what are the weather wackos saying?” he asked as he sat next to her on the couch.

“Lots of storms moving in,” she replied quietly. “Looks like you’re going to be stuck here for a while.”

“Good,” he nodded thoughtfully.

“Good?”

“What? You don’t think so?” he asked when she turned to him with wide eyes.

“No…I mean, yes…I guess?” she stammered, he laughed at her response and quickly stood up. “Where are you going?”

“Before I forget,” he said as he walked over to his wet messenger bag sitting near the door. “I need to give you the things I bought you in China.”

“Oh! I almost forgot!” she exclaimed as she straightened herself and set her mug of tea on her coffee table. She watched as he pulled a small box from his bag and smiled as he walked back to where she was sitting and sat next to her again.

“Now, I don’t really think that you’ll actually use this. I don’t know if you even know how to use this,” he said as he set the box wrapped in a delicate red tissue paper in her lap, “but I figured that it’s pretty and it kind of goes along with you being into art and everything…” she nodded happily, “so…I hope that you like it.”

“I’m sure I will, whatever it is,” she said as she took the box into her hands and tore off the tissue paper covering it.

“It’s a box!” she exclaimed happily as she held the dark wooden box sat in her hands.

“It’s really what’s inside the box that’s the present,” he said with a wink. She giggled and flicked open a small gold latch with her finger.

“Wow…” she said in a hushed voice as she opened the lid and examined the contents. The only implements in the box that she immediately recognized were the two ornate paintbrushes affixed to the lid with ribbon.

“It’s a Chinese calligraphy set,” Jim said with a smile. “I don’t think that you know calligraphy, do you?”

“No, but that’s fine,” she said, “it’s really beautiful.” Her fingers softly brushed over the ornate implements that lined the bottom and she looked up at Jim with a large smile.

“Do you like it?”

“I absolutely love it,” she said happily as she set the box over onto her table. “Thank you.” She leaned in towards him and gave him a generous hug.

“I’m glad…”

“Oh! But wait! Jim Halpert, it is your birthday today!” she exclaimed happily as she clasped her hands together. “Oh shit, and I was going to make you a cake or cupcakes or something…”

“Yeah, way to taunt me,” he said with a grin. “You live above a bakery too, so my entire way up here I was smelling cookies. Here I thought you had made me cookies for my birthday and now I find out that you forgot.” She giggled.

“I can still make them,” she said with a smile. “Oh, and I also have a present for you too.”

“You have a present for me?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Are they imaginary cupcakes?”

“No, and the cupcakes will be real,” she said as she hopped up off the couch and darted behind her kitchen counter.

“So what’s my present?” he asked as he hopped off the couch himself, and leaned over her counter as she reached up into a cupboard for the box of cake mix she had purchased earlier in the week.

“You’ll see later,” she said quickly as she grabbed a large mixing bowl from the same cupboard.

“Oh you are not going to do the whole, ‘You can’t open your presents until we blow out the candles on the birthday cake’ are you?” he asked.

“If I was, you’d never get the present because I don’t have any birthday candles,” she said with a shrug as she ripped open the top of the cake mix and poured it into the bowl.

Jim let out a dramatic gasp as he rushed around to the other side of the counter, meeting Pam in her tiny kitchen space, “Certainly you jest, Beesly! No birthday candles?”

“Sorry,” she said with a simple shrug. “Slipped my mind.” She reached into her refrigerator for a couple of eggs and reached into another cupboard for some vegetable oil.

“Do you have a hair tie?” he asked.

“What? You want to pull your hair back?” she asked with a grin as she turned around to face him.

“Do you?”

“Yes, in the bathroom, there should be a couple next to the sink,” she stated as she started to dump the remaining ingredients into the cake mix. He dashed into the bathroom and emerged only a few seconds later with a hair tie in his hands.

“If you are going to make me a cake…” he said as he gathered up a bunch of her hair in his hand. She froze as his fingers entangled themselves in her hair and she gripped the edge of her counter as he swept her hair up off of her back and neck.

“What are you doing?” she asked quietly, trying to giggle or something to keep up with the lighthearted nature of their conversation. She knew that he had no idea that one of her biggest weaknesses was someone else’s hands in her hair.

“Pulling your hair up, I don’t want Beesly curls in my cupcakes,” he said with a chuckle as he snapped the hair in place with an elastic hair tie.

“Of course not,” she said with a nervous giggle as she started to stir the batter, resisting the urge that she felt in her stomach to turn around, pin him against the counter and cover him with kisses.

“So do I get to help?” he asked, completely unaware of the tension that Pam could feel building between the two of them.

“Well…” she turned around a little, “it’s your birthday, and it’s your cake, so…no.” She smiled.

“I don’t understand your logic,” he said.

“I’ll let you help decorate them when they’re out of the oven!” she exclaimed as she finished mixing the batter.

“Oh come on!”

“Well, all that needs to be done now is pour it into the cupcake pan,” she said with a shrug as she reached into the cupboard next to the stove and pulled out a silicone cupcake pan.

“Well…don’t I feel useless now,” he said with a sad pout.

“You’re supposed to feel that way! It’s your birthday!” she exclaimed as she dipped the tip of her finger in the batter and smeared it on the tip of his nose.

“Cute,” he said as he wiped the batter from his nose and licked it from his finger.

“I know,” she said with a squinted grin.

“So are you a good chef?” he asked as he leaned against the opposite counter and watched as she poured chocolate cake batter into little cupcake molds.

“Oh, you know, I’ve made a charity cake or two in my day,” she replied proudly as she finished off the cake batter and popped the silicone tray into the oven.

“I don’t think that answers any questions,” he said with a smile. She quickly turned around with the large mixing bowl in her hands and a devilish glint in her eyes.

“Do you want to help me finish off the batter?” she asked eagerly as she dipped her finger into the bottom of the bowl.

He smiled, “Oh Pam, you certainly know a man’s weaknesses.”

“Do you want the spoon?” she asked as she reached behind her and grabbed the spoon that she had been mixing the batter with.

“I don’t even know why you bother asking,” he said as he grabbed the spoon from her and ran it along the inside of the bowl. As he brought the spoon to his mouth and started to lick off the chocolate cake batter, Pam felt herself completely melt. She couldn’t remember the last time that she felt this attracted to anyone. Maybe it was because she hadn’t seen him for a month and maybe it was because he was the first person that she knew after breaking it off with Roy that she actually felt a real connection with. Whatever the case was, she knew that she had to give herself a chance with this smart, talented, devastatingly attractive advertising businessman.

“Jim, I have something to tell you,” she said quickly as she watched him licking the cake batter from the spoon.

“You have no present for me,” he said with a smile.

“No, not quite,” she said, straight-faced.

“The cupcakes are my only present?” he asked with a goofy frown.

“No…” she said slowly, she could feel the heat rising in her cheeks and she could feel her heart starting to race.

“What is it?” he asked, the smile starting to fade from his own face as he continued to lick the spoon in his hand.

“I want to be your boyfriend…wait…” she felt herself turn completely red in the cheeks and Jim’s eyes widened as his mouth dropped.

“Well gee, Pam, I’m flattered, but I was really under the impression that you were a woman,” he said, trying to make a joke out of her statement, though he could feel himself blushing slightly.

“That came out totally wrong,” she said as she hung her head in embarrassment.

“What did you mean to say?” he asked as he set the spoon in the bowl of remaining cake batter and set it on the counter behind him.

“I want to be your girlfriend,” she corrected herself. “Or I want you to be my boyfriend.” She smiled at the floor and kicked imaginary dust under the refrigerator. She had never, ever asked anyone out on so much of a date in her entire life, and now she was standing in front of the man that she could see herself falling head over heels in love with him and she was actually asking for a relationship.

“I always imagined that I would ask you that,” he said with a smile as he took her hands in his own and pulled her closer to him.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“Pam,” he said, she mumbled something that he couldn’t hear and smiled. “Pam, look at me.” She swallowed the lump in her throat and looked up into his face and her eyes scanned every part of his face except for his eyes. She was too afraid to look there and face the truth that could either crush her spirit or make her heart soar.

“I feel kind of like an idiot now,” she said softly as she focused in on his chin.

“Look me in the eyes,” he said in a soothing voice. She took a deep breath and her eyes traveled upward to meet his. “I would love to be your boyfriend.” A wide smile crossed her face which he earnestly returned.

“Really?” she asked, feeling like she was in high school all over again.

“If you hadn’t said something, I would have,” he replied.

“Oh, I’m so glad that you said that!” she exclaimed with a breath of relief. She threw her arms around his neck and pulled herself close to his body, feeling like for the first time in a long time she was able to actually enjoy the feeling of another body against hers.

“But seriously, I do have a birthday present, right?” he asked. She pulled away from him and playfully slapped him on the shoulder.

“Yes! Yes you have a birthday present,” she replied with a laugh. “I take it you’re the kind of person who doesn’t like to wait for gifts?”

“That and I don’t really like surprises,” he said with a wry smile.

“Well then, you must have really hated what I laid on you just now,” she said with a giggle as she walked over to one of her bookshelves.

“Not really,” he replied. “I mean, I hate to break it to you, but it probably wasn’t as surprising as you might have hoped it would be.”

“And here I thought I was doing something so spontaneous,” she said as she grabbed a cylindrical package wrapped in blue tissue paper.

“Should I guess what it is?” he asked as she walked back into her kitchen, handed him the gift and hiked herself up to sit on the edge of her counter.

“I bet that you could guess,” she replied with a smile. “Especially seeing as I have very few ideas of what you like other than the color blue and grilled cheese sandwiches.”

“Ah, you know me well enough,” he said with a grin.

“And there’s also the little tidbit of information that I really have very little money that I’m able to spend on things like…gifts,” she said.

“But that’s okay, because the best gifts come from the heart,” he said as he maneuvered himself between her knees and discarded the blue tissue paper on the counter next to where she was sitting.

“Well if you like those kinds of gifts then you’re going to love what you have there,” she said as he pulled a sheet of rolled up paper from a cardboard shipping tube.

“Let me guess…” he said as he started to unroll the paper.

“I don’t know what kind of art you like,” she said with a shy shrug. She looked down at the black and blue piece of art that she had created for him. It was a simple charcoal sketch of the New York City skyline that was drawn on top of a vibrant splashing of blue watercolor. It had been a complete experiment – she didn’t often combine watercolors and charcoal together, but for this she couldn’t resist.

“It’s beautiful,” he said as he looked at it with a smile.

“I hope that you like it,” she said, “I was going to get a frame, but I really couldn’t afford to get it framed, and I didn’t want to just buy you a cheap frame from a thrift store or something like that…”

“I love it and it’s perfect the way it is,” he said with a smile as he admired it once more before rolling it back up and inserting it back into it’s cardboard tube. The two of them stared at each other for a long moment before their intense stare was broken by the ding of the oven timer signaling that the cupcakes were finished baking.

“That’s the…” she pointed to the oven with a silly grin on her face. “Cupcakes…” She pushed him out of the way, grabbed an oven mitt and went to pull the little cupcakes from the oven.

“They smell delicious,” he said as she set them on the counter to cool.

“They will be,” she said, “I don’t think there are a whole lot of ways to mess up box mix cupcakes.”

“You’d be surprised,” he said with a thoughtful nod. She giggled softly and turned to face him again.

“So…what do you want to do while they cool?” a thunder clap shook the windows slightly and Pam smiled.

“I can think of one thing,” Jim replied with a shy look on his face.

“Oh?”

He pulled her close to him with a swift movement like something that one would see in the movies and planted a soft, tentative kiss on her lips. Pam allowed herself to close her eyes softly, and as soon as she felt him starting to pull away from her, she pulled herself in closer to his body. He had kissed her before, before he left for China, but that time had been more of a nervous kiss where neither of them exactly knew if that kiss was what the other person wanted. Maybe Jim still felt that way when his lips tentatively touched Pam’s, but as she pulled herself closer to him, they both knew that they wanted the same thing.

He spun her around, switching positions in her small kitchen, and pinned her against her countertop. She kissed him a little more fiercely as his body pressed against hers; however her lips did all the work. She brought her hands up Jim’s chest, briefly rest them on his shoulders before lacing her fingers through his hair and massaging her fingers at his scalp, urging him further because she didn’t want to be the one to take things any farther. As if on cue, his tongue swept along her lower lip, parting her mouth slightly and she forced herself to suppress a moan bubbling up inside of her as he did.

“Jim,” she said in a squeaky whisper, pulling her head away from his and letting her hands travel away from his hair and back to his shoulders.

“Pam,” he said hoarsely as he looked in her eyes, afraid that he might have done something wrong.

“I…I don’t know,” she said as an embarrassed flush came into her cheeks. He smiled and pulled himself away from her body, taking her hands into his own.

“Too fast?” he asked. She looked up towards her ceiling and her eyes traveled back down to meet his as she shrugged.

“I don’t…think so,” she replied. Her eyes darted down to his lips – bright red and slippery from their kiss. She laughed softly to herself and looked back into his eyes.

“You don’t think so?” he asked with a smile.

“I don’t really know,” she replied, realizing how ridiculous she probably sounded. “It’s just…it’s been a long time.”

“Since…”

“Anything.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

He smiled and nodded as he ran his thumbs against the tops of her hands.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” she said quickly, “there’s nothing more than I would like to do than go and pull you over to my bed over there and do…” she stopped herself before she said too much. He laughed and nodded.

“The feeling is mutual,” he said.

“It’s just…there’s only been…” she refrained from saying ‘Roy’, “the one and…I haven’t been in the early stages of a relationship since high school.” She shrugged with flushed embarrassment.

“No need to explain,” he said as he let go of one of her hands and ran his hand against her cheek, her jaw, the side of her neck. She smiled and cleared her throat.

“Unfortunately, I don’t know a whole lot else to do that will keep the two of us entertained during a thunderstorm,” she said with a shrug.

“Decorate cupcakes,” he said with an eager smile.

“Okay,” she said, “I’ll grab the frosting…” she reached up into her cupboards and grabbed a can of chocolate frosting, a tube of blue icing and a tube of pink icing.

“Why pink?” he asked as she set it down on the counter in front of him.

“I remember you saying once that you thought pink was pretty,” she replied. She pulled a clean dishtowel from a drawer next to the stove, laid it out on the counter and then dumped the chocolate cupcakes on top. “Have at it.”

They both grabbed a warm cupcake and immediately fought over the can of chocolate frosting before Pam grabbed two knives and handed one of them to Jim.

“We could make this into a competition, I bet,” Jim said as he smeared frosting all over the top of his cupcake.

“We could, but I think we both know who would win,” Pam said with a wink.

“Me?”

“No, me.”

“Why you? I’m the one with the birthday.”

“Yeah, we’ll, I’m the artist.” He nodded as he went to grab the tube of blue icing, but Pam quickly grabbed it away from him before he could get it.

“It’s my birthday!”

“It’s my birthday cupcake to you,” she countered as she turned her back to him and wrote on the top of the cake with the icing.

“Unfair,” he said as he shook his head in defeat.

“Here,” she turned around with the cupcake in the palm of her hand.

“What does that mean?” he asked as he looked down at the top which read, “HB JH”.

“Happy birthday, Jim Halpert,” she replied with a grin. He smiled as he took the cupcake from her and took a bite off the bottom.

“Yeah, I think you would win,” he said as he happily ate his birthday cake.

October 18, 2006

It was far too late in the night for her to still be awake. She thought of all the times while living in Scranton that she had wished for moments like this. She had always yearned to go to art school; she wanted to be given assignments where she was supposed to create something magnificent. She usually hadn’t been one to enjoy being judged when it came to her artwork, but she loved getting high grades for pieces of art that she put thought and time into.

She would be graduating in the spring. Since she had already gone through two years of college, she had all of the general education requirements out of the way and she had been able to focus solely on her art classes. She took the ones that she didn’t want to take first – that was last year. Now this year, she was in special technique classes, classes where she could more or less work with any medium that she wanted, as long as the final product fit the assignment at hand. Her favorite and most difficult class of the semester was her “Portraiture” class – the class where she learned how to draw lifelike human faces. She had drawn people in the past – children playing in the park, couples sitting on park benches, and other things of that nature, but the people she drew or painted never really came out looking like realistic human beings. They had the basic human body shape, but as far as being realistic and lifelike, she had always fallen short.

Throughout the semester, she was to draw faces of people. It could be any person. People on the subway, people in the park, friends, family, recreating photos of celebrities was even fair game. Every couple of weeks, she turned in a new charcoal sketch of a different person. This evening, she was working on a portrait of Dwight. He hadn’t been her first choice – her first choice had been Jim, but she had decided at the last minute that she would save him for her final exam.

Dwight was a good subject, she saw him a lot because she spent a lot of her time working at the restaurant. He was also a good candidate because his face had so many different facets. She also learned shortly after starting the project that he could sit with a straight face for a long time. He didn’t speak to her very much while she drew. Most of the time, she would lump all of her break time into one sitting and she would sit at the bar and sketch his features while he polished glasses.

She had at least ten rough sketches that she had compiled of him over the past couple of weeks. She even had a photo which she realized the more that she looked over her sketches she might not even need. Even so, as she sat at the end of her bed with her easel propped up in front of her; she had drawn nothing more than an oval for his head on the sheet of paper in front of her.

She fumbled around for her cell phone. She hadn’t wanted to disturb Jim this late at night. She knew that he was going through a lot of issues with his ex-wife right now, and she hadn’t spoken to him in a couple of days. She missed hearing his voice though, and she knew from previous late-night assignment issues that he was a great help when it came to getting the creative juices flowing inside of her mind.

She dialed his phone number fluidly; she rarely ever searched through her contacts anymore to find his name. Something about dialing his number was therapeutic.

“Hello?” his groggy voice answered.

“I’m sorry I’m calling so late,” she immediately said in an apologetic voice.

“No, it’s fine,” he said and she could hear him turning in his sheets, “Having homework assignment issues again?”

“You know me too well, Halpert,” she said as she turned her neck to hold the phone between her ear and her shoulder.

“Well, I would have preferred that you called me for some late-night loving, but I guess this is okay too,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” she said, apologetically again, “I should have called you a couple of days ago. I’ve just been swamped with work and school…midterms and all.”

“No, that’s fine, it’s been a crazy week for me too,” he said with a yawn, “work and…well, never mind.” She didn’t want to say ex-wife, but she knew that was exactly what “never mind” meant.

“You can talk to me about it, you know,” she said quietly, not wanting to come off mean-spirited or demanding.

“I know, it’s just…I feel weird about it, and I really don’t want to drag you down into it,” he said.

“I don’t know how you’d be dragging me down into it,” she said with a shrug, “but whatever you want. I’m not going to say anything more on the subject.”

“Okay, sounds good,” he said. “Now what is the problem with your homework?”

“I don’t know, I think I just need to hear something more than my own thoughts or memories of angry customers yelling at me and telling me that they need more sour cream or ranch dressing,” she replied. He chucked at the comment and she could hear him shift a bit from the covers of his bed.

“So what are you drawing?” he asked.

“Dwight.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not at all, he’s actually a very inspiring subject.”

“Inspiring to what? Vomit?” Pam laughed loudly and picked up the charcoal in her hands, ready to draw.

“No, he’s a really good subject. He sits still and draws up nicely.”

“He does have a lot of interesting features…”

“That he does.”

“You realize your professor is going to scream in horror when she gets to your picture.” Pam laughed loudly again, imagining the scene play out in her mind.

“Let’s hope not.” She started to scribble out a couple of features – mimicking the same techniques that she had used for the rough sketches.

“So what seems to be your problem with this picture?”

“I don’t really even know to be honest,” she said as she looked down at some of the previous sketches she had drawn, “I mean, I have all of these drawings that I’ve already done of him. Good ones too, and I just can’t seem to actually pull myself into drawing the final product here.”

“Is it because he’s not sitting in front of you droning on about his family’s beet farm?”

“Oh my god, he’s told you those stories too?”

“Are you kidding me, Pam? He tells everyone that will listen for five seconds those stories.”

“Oh man, what about the one where he talked about his brother losing a toe to frostbite while tending the fields as a kid?”

“I don’t know, I don’t think that one is quite as good as the story of him fighting off a bear as a teenager because he was afraid of the bear ruining the beet crops for the season.” Pam giggled as she started to feel more and more inspired to draw Dwight’s portrait.

“Do bears even like beets?”

“I don’t think so…then again, one time while I was camping with my family as a kid, there was a bear that got into our garbage and probably ate about half of it. So I guess I wouldn’t put it past them.” Pam laughed softly as her charcoal scratched out some rough features of Dwight’s face. “How often does he tell you stories?”

“Depends,” she said with a shrug, “sometimes I hear a new story every day. Other times…not so much. In the past, I’ve gone about a month without saying much to him.”

“A whole month! Not even I can go a whole month.”

“You were in China for a month.”

“And you know what? That Dwight, he called me every single day.” Pam giggled, cradling both her phone and her stick of charcoal in her hand while she reached down next to the side of her bed for a glass of water she had placed their earlier.

“I would have never guessed you two had such a close relationship.”

“Well guess what? We do. We’re madly in love. I’m sorry, I should have told you sooner.” She giggled even more and turned her attention back to her picture again.

“I really, really hope not.”

“Yeah, you’re right, I was lying,” he said, “So tell me, Pam. Do you get to embellish these portraits at all?”

“What do you mean ‘embellish’?”

“You know, add certain attributes to the pictures, give the viewer an idea of what’s going on inside of the person’s soul…”

“You don’t suggest that I draw a bear attacking a beet field as a background, do you?”

“Oh my god, Pam. Oh my god. You read my mind.”

“Are you serious?”

“I was going to say exactly that.”

“No you weren’t.”

“Yes I was.”

“We’re sad,” she said with a small laugh as she set down the stick of charcoal and fell back into the rumpled covers of her bed. “What’s even sadder is that I’m thinking about my boss, while I’m on the phone with you.”

“Well, to be fair, the portrait is of your boss.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So just how far along are you?”

“I have the rough sketches of a face.”

“When is it due?”

“Friday.”

“Are you finished with your midterms on Friday?”

“Yeah.”

“You want to go out and celebrate when you get out of class?”

“I wish, but I’m working all weekend long.”

“All weekend?”

“All weekend. I’ve been working short shifts this week so I can get everything done on time. I promised Dwight that I would work some extra time this weekend because of it.”

“Damn.”

“Sorry.”

“No, that’s okay,” she heard a reserved sigh on the other end of the phone. “I just…I kind of miss you. I haven’t seen you since last Friday.”

“I’m sorry, I know.”

“So when do I get to see you again?”

“I don’t know…why don’t we make plans for next weekend? I’ll try and get the evenings off so I can get together with you.”

“A whole other week?”

“I’m really sorry…but hey, I’ll see you when you come in for your lunch meeting.”

“Okay…but don’t be surprised if I randomly show up outside of your apartment some random day during the week. Then you’ll have to let me in.”

“I suppose if I have to, I have to.” She picked up the piece of charcoal again and started to sketch the portrait of Dwight some more.

“But listen, I really should go to sleep. I have an early meeting tomorrow morning with some people from Volkswagen.”

“Volkswagen, eh?”

“Yep.”

“Well, do well in your meeting. Thanks for inspiring me a little bit.”

“Thank you and it was my pleasure.”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

“Later.”

She flipped her phone shut and slouched over the end of her bed, staring at the crude sketch of Dwight staring back at her.

“Let’s get you finished,” she mumbled as she picked up the charcoal in her hands and continued to draw.

November 18, 2006

She hurried down the last couple of blocks to Jim’s home. There was a light snow falling around her and she silently cursed at herself for choosing to wear such a short skirt to work that day. Her legs were numb, and her breath puffed out in white clouds in front of her eyes. She just wanted to get inside where it was warm, where she could be with Jim and where she didn’t have to worry about work or school or anything.

She slipped on a patch of slippery slushy snow right before she reached his corner. A woman out walking her dog looked over her shoulder just as Pam fell onto her hip, but didn’t react in any way and just continued to walk away. Pam pulled herself up onto her hands and knees and carefully stepped upright – her legs shaky, still numb. Her hip throbbed under her coat and clothing and as she brushed herself off she noticed a large brown smudge on her pink coat.

I hope that’s mud…she thought to herself before she quickly dashed to the stairs and made her way up to the front door of the townhouse.

She rang his doorbell and impatiently tapped her toe, waiting for him to answer the door. He wasn’t expecting her, she had decided to come by and surprise him once she had gotten off of work. She hoped that he wasn’t busy. She could see the lights in his apartment were on, so she was glad that he was at least home.

There was no answer, so she rang his buzzer again, hoping and praying to the light above the door that he would come soon. She stomped her feet on the concrete porch a couple of times, trying to regain feeling in her legs without much luck.

“Pam!” he swung the door open and Pam felt like jumping into his arms she was so happy to feel the rush or warm air from inside start circling around her legs.

“Thank goodness you’re home!” she exclaimed as she rushed past him without even being let in.

“What are you doing here?” he asked as he closed the door behind him and followed her into his living space. “Or more importantly, where are your pants?” He looked down at her bare legs and seriously wondered.

“I’m wearing a skirt,” she replied as she slipped off her shoes and rushed into his kitchen without even taking her coat off.

“How short is it?” he asked as he blindly followed her, continuing to stare at her lower body.

“Short enough,” she replied with a wink as she ran a paper towel under the water of the sink and started to blot it at the large brown mud stain on the side of her coat.

“Can I take your coat?” he asked.

“Hang on, I don’t want this to stain,” she replied as she continued to blot at the brown splotch.

“How did that happen?”

“I fell,” she replied with a bashful grin, though she was ecstatic that the mud was coming out. “I hope that I didn’t ruin any fun plans that you might have had for tonight.” She threw the dirty paper towel into his trash and pulled the coat away from her torso.

“No…” she thought that maybe he was going to say more, but he seemed to be struck dumb the second she peeled her coat off.

“What?” she asked as she turned around slowly, the skirt rising just a little bit higher.

“Wow,” he replied as he stared at her dumbly.

“I didn’t know I had that effect,” she said with a smile as she hung her coat up on a peg. “And to think I didn’t get any extra tips tonight.”

She walked over to his living room couch and launched herself up in the air and over the arm of the couch, landing in the cushions, and her skirt lifting far up around her legs.

“Holy god,” Jim said as he walked over to her and tried not to stare at her lying on his couch – legs dangling haphazardly over the arm, skirt nearly up around her hips, her dark red sweater showing off a glimpse of her stomach and her hair scattered everywhere around her head.

“What is it Halpert?” she asked as she tugged at the bottom of her sweater then the bottom of her skirt.

“Why…um…” he cleared his throat nervously. “Why did you decide to come here tonight?”

“Should I leave?” she asked flatly.

“No, I’m just…” he cleared his throat again.

“Why do you think I’m here?”

“To…uh…”

“To see you,” she finished with a happy smile. He walked to the other end of the couch and sat near her head and looked down at her.

“How long have we been together so far?” he asked.

“Three months maybe,” she replied as she thought back to the day that she asked him to be her boyfriend.

“And…how many times have we had sex in those three months?” he asked. She swung her legs off the arm of the sofa and gathered herself up in front of him.

“Zero,” she replied.

“Exactly,” he said. “Now…three months seems to be an awfully long time to wait for something like that…”

“What are you suggesting?” she asked with wide eyes and a fake offended disposition. He shrugged. “Are you suggesting that I compromise my good, Christian morals?”

“Are you religious?”

“Not really.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Still,” she continued, “I’d hate for you to think of me of any less than a lady.”

“I would hate that too,” he replied with a grin. “But you know what else I would hate?”

“What?”

“For you to continue sitting next to me in that adorable cute little skirt of yours and get a single chance to touch you,” he said.

“Hmm, you make a point,” she said with a quick nod.

“Do you think three months is long enough?” he asked. She looked around his living room with a huge smile on her face, drawing out the moment for as long as she could.

“Yes.”

“Do you want to go upstairs right now and fool around a little?”

“Absolutely I do,” she said.

She quickly jumped up off of his sofa and skipped up his stairs ahead of him. Every step that she took up the stairs, Jim lagged behind a little bit, hoping that he would be able to catch a glimpse of underneath her skirt. She stopped near the top step and looked down at him, then pulled the cotton fabric of her skirt close to her legs.

“Jim Halpert, I never knew you were such a voyeur,” she said before she quickly skipped up the last couple of stairs and then quickly rounded the corner towards his bedroom.

She stood in the doorway of his room until he made it to the top of the stairs. Once both of his feet were on the second floor, she darted into his bedroom and practically did a somersault onto his bed, the back of her skirt flipping up over her hips flashing Jim a glimpse of her pink and white striped panties. He stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of his doorway as he watched her quickly flip over with a squeal to conceal herself.

“Pam Beesly,” he said as he shook his head. “You are…you are going to be the demise of me.” She rolled over onto her stomach, propped her elbows on the mattress and held her chin in her hands. She kicked her legs behind her rapidly and licked her bottom lip while looking Jim in the eyes.

“What are you doing?” he asked nodding towards her legs.

“My legs were a little numb from the walk here,” she replied with a bashful smile.

“Can I ask you something?” he asked as he slowly approached the bed.

“Something…anything,” she replied.

“Did you wear that skirt for me?” he asked.

“Maybe,” she replied as she continued to kick her legs.

“You think I like short skirts?” he asked.

“If you don’t, I think you do now,” she replied as she moved her hips just so that the skirt rose in the back, so it was only barely covering the pink and white cotton against her skin.

“You’re evil,” he said with a grin as he peeled off his socks and sat next to where she laid the bed.

“You’re aroused,” she said, also with a grin, as she looked at his lap.

“Christ…” he turned a little to try and maneuver his way from her line of sight.

“What? It’s not like I won’t be seeing it anyway,” she said quietly as she dropped her head onto the top of his comforter and turned her eyes towards him.

“Are you intoxicated?” he asked after a brief moment of silence.

“What?”

“Have you been drinking?”

“No! Why would you ask that?”

“You just seem to be…different than usual.”

“No, I have not been drinking,” she stated, “and…no! I have not been drinking.” He nodded and sprawled out next to her, one of his legs tangling around one of hers. She giggled a couple of times and her face started to straighten a bit and the two of them lay in silence for a few moments as the air between the two of them started to quickly change.

“Hi,” she said as she blinked.

“You’re gorgeous,” he said softly as he scanned her face, her eyes, her hair and the curves of her torso. She felt herself flush from her neck all the way to her forehead and her eyes ducked away from him. “What?”

“Nothing,” she said shyly.

“You’ve never been told you’re gorgeous?” he asked quietly as a hand came up and brushed some curls from her cheeks and tucked a few locks of hair behind her ear.

“Oh it’s been a long time,” she replied with a sigh and she closed her eyes slowly as Jim’s hand brushed against her cheek. She scooted closer to him until their noses almost touching and she softly kissed him. Her lips trailed back and forth over his as if she was trying to taste and feel everything that he had touched his lips to during the day.

“Wow,” he whispered when she pulled away and scanned her eyes.

“You always say that whenever you kiss me,” she said quietly with a small smile.

“I mean it,” he said as his lips softly touched hers again.

When they pulled away from one other again, they both stared at the other in silence, unable to formulate the words that they desperately wanted to communicate. Pam opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, but then she just shyly shook her head and looked away.

“What?” Jim asked, breaking the silence.

“I…” she stammered a bit, “I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I just don’t know what to say,” she said with a bashful look on her face.

“When was the last time…”

“Really? You want to ask me that?” she asked, clearly knowing that the end of the sentence was going to be him asking her when she last had sex. He shrugged.

“I guess I’m just curious,” he replied.

“I don’t remember,” she said flatly.

“You don’t remember? Or you don’t want to say?” he asked.

“I don’t remember,” she replied, and it was true, she didn’t remember. It had been sometime before the wedding, a long time before the wedding actually. The stress of having to plan almost everything herself had eaten away at her sex life, and Roy’s ‘last days of freedom’ behavior started to really rub on her nerves so she had become somewhat celibate in the months leading up to her wedding.

“Really?” she nodded.

“What about you?” she asked.

“It’s been…at least a year,” he replied.

“I’m sorry,” she replied, her eyes wide.

“Well, no need to look at me like a raving lunatic,” he said with a chuckle. She giggled softly herself and ducked her head under his chin.

“I just need you to…”

“Slow.”

“Yeah.” She looked up into his eyes again and kissed him once more, lingering along his bottom lip before she abruptly pulled away and stood up.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I need to use the bathroom,” she replied with a quick smile as she allowed herself to flick her skirt up again, giving him the slightest glimpse of her panties again.

“You know, for someone that wants to take it on the slow side…you’re certainly a tease,” he said as he watched her walk out of his bedroom.

 

He snapped awake from his thoughts when he heard the toilet flush through the wall and his eyes quickly darted to the side of his bed where he had thrown his jeans. He figured there was really no use in keeping them on – he was still wearing his underwear – after all, they probably were going to be spending a lot of their time for the remainder of the evening in his bed. Who wore jeans in bed anyway?

She walked through the frame of the doorway and shut the door behind her. She walked to the foot of the bed and began to fumble with the button on the side of her skirt.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he watched her fingers.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” she asked as she looked up at him with a slightly furrowed brow.

“It looks like you are moving a little fast,” he replied.

“It looks like you already have yourself,” she said as she looked at his naked legs and then the pair of jeans crumpled up on the floor next to the bed.

He wondered how she did it, as her fingers grasped for the zipper and slowly slid it down the side of her thigh. They had been together for three months, he had known her for more than a year, he had felt something for her for a little under a year and yet as she stood in front of him – in front of his bed – taking her skirt off in a swift and delicate motion, he felt as nervous as he had the very first time he had ever laid his eyes on an actual naked woman – and she wasn’t even naked yet!

“What?” she asked as she tossed the dark skirt over on top of his jeans and slid along the bed to be next to his body again.

“What?”

“You’re looking at me like…”

“I want you?”

“Or something like that.”

“Maybe it’s because I do,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close against his body.

“What are you going to do?” she asked quietly.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked in reply. She bit her bottom lip, and he had to fight every urge in his body to wrap his fingers tightly around the loose curls in her hair and kiss every inch of her face – every inch of her body.

She pulled her legs around and sat up on her knees and lifted her hands above her head.

“What?”

“Take off my sweater,” she said with a smile.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

He pulled himself up onto his knees and wrapped his fingers around the bottom of her sweater.

“You sure?” he asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked in reply. He mumbled something to himself and she smiled as the knuckles of his fingers began to rub against the bare skin of her stomach as he slowly peeled the sweater away from her torso. He felt a lump form in his throat when he pulled the sweater up around her breasts, and he couldn’t resist running each of his pinky fingers along the cotton of her bra. He smiled when her torso shifted towards him very slightly from the touch and he finally pulled the sweater up off over her head – her soft curls momentarily following the path of the sweater, before falling around her shoulders.

Jim wanted to say something – anything – as he took her in. He opened his mouth to say something, but instead of speaking, he quickly wrapped his arms around her back and brought his mouth hungrily against hers. One of his hands quickly trailed up her backbone and his fingers knotted themselves in her hair and he pulled her head towards him just so he could kiss her with more fury.

He held her tight against his body and then slowly reclined back into his pillows, pulling her down on top of him. She followed without any hesitation, their lips never once parting. She straddled his legs quickly, pressed her chest against his and cupped his face in her hands as she kissed him, allowing the tips of her fingers to play with the stray wisps of hair that fell around his ears.

She held her hips above his for a few moments, uncertain about actually lowering herself to his body. She couldn’t see his arousal, but she certainly knew it was present – just waiting for her to give her word and say, “Yes, let’s do this”. As his tongue became more insistent, prowling along her lips, running along the bottom of her teeth; she knew that she was as ready as she was ever going to be. She brought her hips down on top of his and her entire torso pressed against his as she kissed him as insistently as he had been kissing. His mouth dropped open and he moaned quietly against her bottom lip and her chin and she immediately backed away, scooting herself down towards his knees.

“What?” he asked as she broke away from him – he suddenly felt a lot colder than he had just a minute ago.

“Sorry,” she replied with an embarrassed smile and she shook her head, “I…you surprised me is all.”

“What did I do?” he asked.

“You just…you made a noise and it…” she shook her head again, “sorry, I feel silly now.” She pulled herself off of his legs and crept back up along the side of his body.

“Have you never been with someone who likes to make noises?” he asked as he nuzzled his chin against the crook of her neck and exhaled loudly against the bottom of her ear while tickling the side of her stomach. She expected to giggle, but instead she arched her back, pressing her stomach into his and exhaled loudly against his ear.

“I have but…” she whispered as she felt like there was a swarm of butterflies in her stomach. His lips danced on the side of her neck and she quickly closed her eyes tightly as she felt a jolt of electricity run from her neck all the way to her toes.

“But what?” he asked as the tip of his tongue teased her earlobe and her hands fisted around the soft cotton of the t-shirt he was still wearing.

“I don’t know…” she panted as she shoved the cotton up around his chest, suddenly feeling a desperate need for him. “I forgot the question.” He kissed the dip in her neck and she pressed her hips against his again, exhaling loudly against his forehead.

“Are you going to run away if I make another noise?” he asked against the other side of her neck, his lips trailing up to her jaw and seeking her lips again. She shook her head ‘no’ as his lips briefly parted from hers and she tried to say the word as well, but it only came out as a desperate squeak in her voice.

He smiled as her hips moved in small circles against his and it was his turn to make a desperate panting sound.

“You ready?” he asked as his eyes met hers. She bit her bottom lip and nodded vigorously. He smiled and quickly hooked his fingers around the elastic hem of her panties and pulled them down around her thighs in a swift motion. She kicked them the rest of the way off, flinging them into a far corner of the room. His hand traced the curve of her leg until it found the center and he buried his hand between her legs. She quickly wriggled away from his touch and took a deep breath.

“No,” she said quietly.

“You don’t want…”

“No, I’m ready,” she insisted as she quickly peeled the t-shirt off of his chest and hooked her fingers around the elastic of his boxers.

“But Pam, I…” he didn’t really know why he was arguing with her as she pushed the cotton underwear down to his knees. “It’s not going to be long…”

“I’m fast,” she said quickly as one of her legs wrapped around both of his and she started to pull him towards her – on top of her.

“It’s been…”

“Long, I know,” she said quickly as she met his lips again. He started to position himself on top of her when he suddenly stopped and he broke the kiss with her.

“Wait, Pam,” he pushed down on her shoulder with one hand and looked around frantically.

“What?” she breathed, a twinge of a whine in her voice.

“It’s just…I don’t think I have any…” he looked over towards his bedside table.

“It’s fine, don’t worry,” she said quickly as she tried to pull him down.

“But you…”

“I fine,” she said, “I don’t have anything, I take the necessary precautions…” She wrapped her arm around the back of his neck and pulled him down towards her and kissed him.

“You sure?”

“Yes!”

“Absolutely?”

“Yes! Absolutely!” Her hips bucked upwards into his and he groaned softly. He’d have to trust her on this one because there was no way that he was going to be able to wait any longer.

He pushed inside of her swiftly and she made a soft moaning noise that he had never heard before. The two of them froze for a moment, hardly breathing and simply staring at one another.

“Keep going,” she said in a small voice, urging him on as she lifted her head towards his, kissing the side of his neck and wrapping her arms around his back. She pulled him close to her body and savored the sensation of every muscle in his body moving against hers as he circled his hips on top hers.

He buried his head in the side of her neck, the sweat on his forehead sticking to her hair that seemed to circle him as he kept up his quick pace. His breathing sped up quickly, and she could feel his heart racing against her chest and the tips of her fingers. He groaned quietly a couple of times, and she wrapped her legs around the back of his legs, bringing him even closer against her body.

She came suddenly, and she surprised herself at how loudly she moaned against his hair at the top of his head. It seemed to momentarily surprise him as well, but hearing her release seemed to be the exact thing that was able to send him over the edge. He groaned again, biting softly at her shoulder before the two of them fell silent – all with the exception of their breathing.

They lay in silence for a few moments, neither of them daring to speak or even move.

“You weren’t kidding,” Jim said, the first to speak, his lips moving against the top of her chest.

“About what?”

“Being fast,” he replied. She giggled softly and maneuvered her hips away from his, breaking their connection.

“It’s been a long time,” she said with a smile as she rolled onto her side and looked him in the eyes.

“Yeah,” he said, returning her smile. He kissed her softly on her lips again, his hand softly caressed her cheek and as he pulled his lips away, his hand continued to linger.

“So…” she said with a sigh.

“Are you going to spend the night?” he asked as his fingers trailed along the side of her neck.

“Do you want me to?”

“Kind of,” he replied with a boyish grin.

“Of course I will,” she said as she snuggled against his body and ducked her head under his chin. They stayed silent for a couple more minutes until Pam started to giggle softly.

“What?” Jim asked as he pulled away and looked down at her.

“I hate that I’m thinking this because it’s so horribly cliché of me,” she replied with a goofy smile.

“What’s that?”

“I think I could fall in love with you,” she said before she quickly ducked under his chin again and snuggled in close to his body.

“I think I could too,” he said softly as he ran his hand through her hair and kissed her softly on the top of her head.

December 23, 2006

Pam felt kind of depressed. She felt no where near the same amount of sorrow that she had the year before. She was in a good – no, great – relationship with a wonderfully successful man, she hadn’t heard from Roy in a long time, and overall, her successes in school and at the restaurant throughout the past year made her feel accomplished and proud of herself. Unfortunately, this Christmas season, she wasn’t going home to spend the holiday with her family because of work commitments and Jim had been out of town on business for the past week and a half.

She had received a call from him late the previous night. She had almost fallen asleep and then she was shocked awake by her cell phone ringing above her head. He was stuck in Chicago for the night due to bad weather conditions. She had received another call at seven that morning – before she had even woken up – from Jim telling her that he had finally arrived in New York City again and would be home that evening sometime.

 

She felt sloppy at work that day. She dropped a few plates, she accidentally stepped on a child’s foot during the dinner rush and there was another child that accidentally spilled his glass of water all over the front of Pam’s shirt and skirt. She was ready for the day to be over. She was ready to see Jim. She was ready to curl up in front of a fireplace – even though neither she nor Jim had one where they lived. She just wanted the holidays – this day in particular – to be over.

 

They closed really late, she didn’t leave the restaurant until midnight and she was ready to just go to sleep. She searched through her purse for her phone. Finally finding it at the very bottom of her bag, she pulled it out and looked at the display. No calls. She had just finished working twelve hours and she had received no calls. Jim hadn’t even called her. Why not? She immediately flipped open the phone and dialed his number.

His phone rang, and rang, and rang and…

“Hello?” there was something not quite right about his voice, she thought.

“Hey Jim.”

“Who is this?” when was the last time he had asked her who she was on the phone?

“It’s Pam,” she said, “is this…this is Jim, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Probably.”

“Should I catch a cab?”

“Eh…”

“Jim?”

“I guess. If you want.”

“I’m coming over.”

“Okay.”

“Are you okay?”

“Not really.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Eh…”

“Jim, I’ll be there shortly, okay?”

“Okay.” She heard him clumsily hang up his phone and she practically jumped into the street at the first taxi she saw that was available.

 

She slipped on the sidewalk, and she almost tripped on his stairs. This day was just one bad moment after the other. As she thought about Jim’s voice on the phone though, she didn’t care that her knee was scraped and bleeding from the ice or that she had stubbed her toe on concrete. She just wanted to make sure that he was okay.

She ran the buzzer, half expecting him to be in the door waiting for her. He wasn’t waiting and he didn’t respond to the buzzer. She buzzed again. No response. A third time. Nothing. Finally, she buzzed a fourth time and started to knock on the door. She heard the lock click and she walked inside, surprised that he hadn’t just come out to let her in like usual.

She walked to his door and walked right in. The door wasn’t locked, but maybe he had unlocked it when he let her in via the buzzer. She peeled off her coat and looked at her knee in the dim light of the apartment. Her nylons were ruined and there was blood trickling down her leg.

She looked around for Jim, she couldn’t see him.

“Jim?” she called.

“Over here,” she heard a voice that was vaguely familiar to Jim’s call from over by the couch. A hand came up over the back and she nervously smiled. She took off her shoes and walked over to where he was.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as he saw him sprawled out across the couch, a nearly empty bottle of tequila sat by his head. “Are you drunk?” She had never seen him drunk before, she had never heard him drunk before now, she wasn’t even certain if she had ever seen him even a little bit inebriated. He always held his liquor so well.

“A little,” he said with a slight hiccup.

“Have you consumed this entire bottle?” she asked as she held up the bottle of tequila, the last little bits of clear liquid swishing around in the bottom.

“I don’t know,” he replied as he looked away and out his window. “Probably. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Do you feel okay?” she asked with a wrinkled nose as she put the bottle out of his reach.

“I guess,” he replied with a shrug as his head lolled back to the arm of the couch and his eyes lazily traveled from her waist to her face. “Hey! It’s Pam!” She didn’t know whether she should laugh at him or start crying.

“Yeah,” she said as she walked over to his side. “Let’s get you upstairs and into bed, shall we?” He nodded.

She knelt down next to him and allowed him to put his arm around her shoulders for support. The two of them stood slowly and she helped him towards his staircase and up the stairs, making sure that he didn’t fall or anything worse. When she rounded the stairs with him, he slumped against the wall.

“Jim,” she said forcefully, afraid that he might have passed out.

“Shh,” he said drunkenly, “I don’t like loud noises.”

“Come on, it’s just a few more steps to your bedroom,” she said as she pulled the weight of his body along with hers until they reached the doorway of his bedroom, and then his bed.

Once they had reached the foot of his bed, she slowly laid him down on top of his comforter. She looked down at him, sprawled out like a drunken child. She hoped that he wouldn’t succumb to alcohol poisoning; she didn’t know what she would do. He seemed really drunk, but she had never been around a drunken Jim before. Maybe he had just finished off a couple of shots that had been remaining in the bottle.

Pam knelt down at his feet and slowly took off his socks, then followed his pant legs and undid the button and zipper on his jeans.

“Are we going to have sex?” he asked as she started to roll the denim off of his legs.

“Not tonight,” she replied quickly as she threw the jeans over to a clothes hamper in the corner of the room.

“Why not?” he asked, grabbing her hands and pulling her down on top of him.

“Because you’re drunk,” she replied. “And I don’t have sex with drunken men.”

She decided to leave his shirt on, and she rolled off of him, and propped herself up next to him and watched him as his eyes swept back and forth, looking at the ceiling.

“Do you feel sick?” she asked.

“No,” he replied as he shook his head.

“So you’re not going to throw up all over your expensive sheets?” she asked with a smile.

“No, I never get sick when I’m drunk,” he replied, and she could swear she detected a hint of pride in his statement.

“I’m going to go get you some water,” she said quickly as she began to stand up.

“No, don’t leave,” he sat up quickly and grabbed the back of her shirt, keeping her from going any farther. “Please don’t leave me.” She turned her head to look at him and he was biting his lip, he looked like he might cry.

“I’ll be right back,” she said pointing towards the door. “I don’t want you to get dehydrated.”

“You promise that you’ll be back?” he asked.

“I promise,” she replied with a generous nod. He let go of her shirt and she took another step forward, but Jim quickly grabbed her hand and pulled her back towards him. “I’ll be right back.” She nodded again; he nodded back and reluctantly let her go.

As she walked down the stairs to get him a glass of water, she wondered what could make him turn into that kind of a person. There had been occasions in the past – in her previous life – where Roy had gotten extremely drunk. He drank fairly frequently, but whenever he went out with his teammates, or his brother, he could become downright dangerous. She had only seen him cry on one or two occasions. It was usually after he thought that he had done something wrong to screw up their relationship, or if she had done something mean to him. She wondered if Jim was like that too, but why would he be so upset? What would bring him to near tears? What would will him to drink an entire bottle of tequila?

Pam rounded the stairs again; glass of ice water in her hand and the sudden realization hit her hard, like a slap in the face. She walked into Jim’s bedroom; he was sitting up now – swaying a little, but at least sitting. She handed him the glass of ice water and he took it graciously.

“So what has she done?” Pam asked.

“Who?” Jim asked after he took a long drink of the water. Pam stared him in the eyes.

“You know who,” she replied. He bent over and set the glass of water on the floor with a heavy sigh.

“Fuck.”

“You don’t have to hide her from me,” she said quietly. “You can tell me about what happened.” She sat down next to him on the bed and looked at him intently. He sighed again.

“Will you rub my back?” he asked. She smiled a little and nodded.

“So what’s wrong?” she asked as she rubbed small circles into his back.

“How long do you have?” he asked wearily.

“All night,” she replied. He fell back onto the mattress and she scooted towards his head and brushed the hair off of his forehead.

“She’s so fucking greedy!” he exclaimed as he punched the mattress with his fist. “She never used to be that way.”

“You want to tell me about her?” she asked.

“You really want to know?” he asked. Pam shrugged.

“If it makes you feel better in the end…” she replied. “I mean, you’re the one who listened to me when I talked all about my ex-fiancé.”

“Yeah…”

“So tell me, where did you two meet?”

“Right after I graduated and got a job where I work now,” he said quietly, “she wasn’t the vice president of her company yet, but she was working on it.”

“She’s a vice president of a company and she wants your money?”

“Crazy, isn’t it?” Pam nodded. “Anyway, I met her at the spring dinner gala that year; it was right after I had been hired. I saw her and it was one of those scenarios where you think, ‘Mm, yeah, I’ll take her home tonight’.”

“Really?”

“Sure,” he said. “Anyway, I thought it was just going to be kind of a one-night deal, but the more that I was around her and the more that I got to know her…I kind of became smitten with her. We dated briefly and I decided that I wanted to marry her.”

“How long was that?”

“What?”

“How long did you date her before you decided you would marry her?”

“Two months I think,” he said thoughtfully. “Horribly drastic of me – I have no idea what I was thinking. I bought her a really cheap engagement ring since I hadn’t been working for very long. She said yes, though, I don’t think she really wanted to looking back on things.”

“Wow…”

“So we got married after six months of being together,” he explained. “Really haphazardly thrown together wedding. We didn’t even invite anyone. It was just me, her and the guy that married us. I didn’t tell my mom, I don’t think that she told hers either. We just…got married. And then we went to Paris for our honeymoon.”

“You went to Paris with her?” Jim nodded.

“Anyway, the marriage basically progressed like any normal relationship that you would ever be in. Around 8 months since we were first together we started running into problems. She claimed to me that she didn’t want any children and I did…which I later learned probably just meant she didn’t want children with me. And you know, she was so business-oriented. She was always out of town on business and basically leaving me behind all the time. Six months into the marriage we called it quits.”

“Just like that? You didn’t even get a chance to work things out?” Pam asked, unsure why she was asking him the question. He looked up at her, stared her right in the eyes and there was something about the look that frightened her.

“Just like that,” he stated flatly.

“What did she do?” she asked, a little afraid to ask the question.

“She cheated on me,” he replied quietly, angrily even, “President of the company’s headquarters in London.”

“What?” Pam’s mouth dropped open and her eyes widened.

“Five months into the marriage, she went on a business trip to London for the company,” he said calmly. “She had been with the guy for two months already…” She opened her mouth to say something – anything – but nothing came. Her lips blindly fumbled for words that she couldn’t even comprehend.

“Wow…”

“That’s not all.”

“There’s more?” she asked incredulously.

“She was pregnant,” he replied.

“You have a kid?” Pam asked, her mind reeling.

“No, no,” he replied. “That was the first set of things that I had to set straight…last spring. The night of the dinner gala, we had a big argument about the paternity of the child and…I immediately took the test and it immediately proved that her current husband was the father.”

“Who’s her current husband?”

“The British guy,” he stated flatly. “So anyway, we immediately divorced because…well…I didn’t want my wife cheating on me with some guy in London. She moved to England, got a job as vice president with the advertising company there and just last spring she moved back to the States. I guess that her husband was demoted and she was offered the vice president position at the American company.” He shrugged.

“And now she’s asking you for money,” Pam said.

“Pretty much,” he said. “Her husband keeps getting demoted because he has a horrible work ethic, and she wants all the money she can possibly get.” He sat up a little. “At least we were able to easily and quickly prove that her son isn’t mine because I don’t even want to know how much I would owe her given that situation.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” he said with sarcastic laugh. “Be glad that you didn’t get married.”

“I guess so…” she said dumbly, trying to absorb all of the information that he had just laid out in front of her. “So when do you think it will all be over?”

“All of what?”

“The…legal…money stuff.”

“Hopefully soon,” he explained. “I’m trying to get it settled out of court still. Our lawyers are constantly talking with one another. Right now her goal is to take my place here because I bought it while we were married so she thinks that part of it belongs to her…of course, she hasn’t been listed so much as living here in the past two and a half years.” He sighed. “She’s really good at catching me when I’m out of town too, so she sets up mandatory legal meetings as soon as I return, knowing I’ll be too tired to put up a fight and she’ll get what she wants.”

“What a bitch.”

“No kidding,” he said with a slight smile. He looked over at Pam, her face looking significantly more worn than when she had first arrived. “I’m sorry…I just dumped like…everything on you.”

“No…” she shook her head. “It’s okay.”

He stood up, a little shaky still, but some of the alcohol seemed to have worn off quite quickly. He walked around to the side of the bed and peeled back his sheets.

“Are you going to spend the night?” he asked as he lay down against his pillows.

“Sure,” she replied without even thinking twice. She peeled off her skirt and her ruined nylons. “Do you have a shirt that I can wear to sleep?”

“Yeah, look on the right side of my closet,” he said as he pointed over towards his large closet doors. She stood up, walked over to his closet doors and pulled them open. She grabbed the first t-shirt and she could find and quickly peeled off her work shirt and replaced it with one of Jim’s worn tees.

She returned to his bed and crawled next to him.

“Do you feel any better now than you did earlier?” she asked as she rubbed her chin against his shoulder.

“A little,” he replied with a nod. She kissed his softly on his cheek and wrapped her arm around his stomach.

“Please don’t vomit on me in the middle of the night,” she said with a small laugh.

“I promise I won’t,” he said with a chuckle. He turned off the light next to him and the two of them burrowed their way under the covers of his bed.

“Hey Jim?” Pam said quietly, as she curled up next to his body.

“Yeah?”

“I promise I will never hurt you,” she said quietly. He didn’t say anything, but she knew that she had chosen the right words because his arm wrapped around her shoulders and he pulled her tightly against his chest. “I’m really sorry this is happening,” she finished before she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

December 29, 2006

She rolled over and pushed on his chest and groaned as she tried and stretch out every muscle in her body. It had been a long night, and she didn’t feel like she had slept nearly long enough. When she pressed at the middle of Jim’s chest, he let out a loud snore and pulled her close to his body. She giggled quietly and she looked up at his face just as he opened an eye.

“Caught you!” she exclaimed quietly and playfully nibbled at his bottom lip.

“Why are you up so early?” he asked as he stretched his legs and looked over her shoulder at the clock that read 7 AM.

“You were poking me,” she replied with a girlish grin.

“I was not,” he said as he rubbed an eye with his fist.

“Yes you were,” she said as her fingers started to playfully tickle the middle of his chest and traveled down towards his boxers.

“Oh,” he said, turning a little pink as he rolled his hips away from her. “Sorry.”

“No it’s okay,” she said with a sleepy smile. “It’s kind of comforting…in a really weird way.” He laughed a sleepy laugh and closed his eyes again.

“Go back to sleep,” he said, putting his hand over her eyes.

“Why?”

“You were up until at least 2 AM, because that’s when I finally dragged you up here in bed with me. But who knows, maybe you were up even later,” he said as he shook his head and pulled her against his chest.

“Later.”

“See, I fell asleep before you did and I want to go back to sleep,” he said and he ran his hand along the back of her sleep tussled hair.

“Are you hung over?” she asked quietly.

“Yes, and I’m shocked that you aren’t.”

**

Her party had started at The Golden Beet. They closed the restaurant fairly early in the evening – the last dinner that they had served was at seven o’clock. Slowly after the last couple in the restaurant had received their meal, several guests for Pam’s party started to file into the doors.

Jim had arranged the entire thing – enlisting the help of Dwight. He had even invited everyone that he knew Pam liked. There wasn’t a huge line of guests to show up: Dwight – because he had to be there whether they liked it or not, Angela, Kelly, Michael, Ryan and himself. He had even gone through the trouble to invite Pam’s mother and sister. Her sister hadn’t been able to make it since she lived across the country, but her mother was more than willing to make it into the city for a few hours to see her daughter on her birthday.

Pam had been working in the back of the kitchen while Dwight and Jim planned out the entire evening at The Golden Beet. She had been under the impression that they were just going to hang out at the restaurant for a little while and then maybe go back to Jim’s place. She had no idea that they had decorated the place with blue and pink streamers, that they had made her a special birthday dinner for everyone present to partake in and that Dwight had even made her a huge birthday cake.

Eight o’clock rolled around and she was tired of scrubbing down the stainless steel counters. She was ready to just throw in her rag and quit. It was her birthday after all. Was it really fair for the birthday girl to be working this hard?

“Pam,” Jim had poked around the kitchen doors and smiled at her scrubbing away at the counters. Some of her hair was sticking around her face, “Do you want to come on out here and help us out?”

She welcomed the break from working in the kitchen and nodded eagerly.

“Take off the apron,” he said looking down at her food-stained, restaurant-issue apron.

“If you say so,” she said with a shrug, wondering why she should take off the apron if she was just going to be scrubbing down tables out in the dining room. She lifted the apron above her head and hung it on a hook next to the door as Jim put his arm around her and led her out into the dining room.

She just about tripped over a chair when she was greeted by everyone that was invited – including her mother, who she hadn’t seen in months. She immediately rushed over to her mother and threw her arms around her neck.

“Who invited my mother?!” she exclaimed happily, not leaving her side.

“That would be me,” Jim said raising his hand shyly.

“Jim! Thank you!” she exclaimed as she hugged her mother again. She had hardly even noticed the decorations or the enormous cake sitting on the bar that read, “Happy Birthday Pam!”

**

“You’ve never been a morning person,” Jim groaned as Pam tickled his stomach, refusing to let him sleep as long as she was awake in his bed.

“Well maybe it’s time I change that. I’m twenty seven now, you know,” she said as she twisted herself back and forth along the length of his body.

“Which means that you need more sleep,” he said without opening his eyes.

“No,” she said as her fingers curled through his chest hair.

“Sleep.”

“Wake up.”

“Sleeeeep.”

**

A group of them made the trek across town in two separate taxis. Pam had put up a fight when her mother had insisted that she drive home. She begged her mother to come with the rest of them to Jim’s. She didn’t want to leave her mother so soon.

“I had a great time at the restaurant,” her mother said as she placed her hands firmly on her daughter’s shoulders. “I had a delicious dinner and I had some delicious cake, and I met all of your wonderful friends! I really should get home though before it gets too late.”

“You can stay at my apartment tonight!” she persisted. “You could probably stay at Jim’s if you really wanted to, he has a guest bedroom.”

“No sweetie, I need to go home,” her mother said as she kissed her daughter twice on her cheeks. “I love you. Happy birthday.”

“Thanks, mom,” she said with a twinge of sadness in her voice, “I love you too. Drive home safely.”

“I will,” her mother said as she kissed Pam once more on the forehead and made her way down the street to the location where she had parked her car.

She was just as surprised when they arrived at Jim’s apartment as she had been when she first walked out into the dining room of The Golden Beet earlier that evening. He had set everything up in his living area before he left. The table was full of drinks and snacks, and he even had a couple of Pam’s favorite games stacked on the counter, ready for her to choose from and play.

Ryan had immediately made a rush for the deck of cards, announcing that he would be playing Michael in poker and that anyone else who wanted to join in should join immediately before Michael proved what a sore loser her was and what a horrible poker player he really was. Kelly immediately latched onto Ryan’s side, and stayed there for the rest of the night.

**

“What’s that?” Pam asked as she bolted upright, hearing the sink running on the other side of the wall. Jim pulled her down onto the bed again, and wrapped an arm around her tightly.

“What?”

“There’s someone here!” she panicked as she tried to sit up again to hear better.

“I know,” he said quietly. “Ryan stayed the night. He was really drunk and I think he lost all of his money in a couple of poker games so he couldn’t get home anyway.”

“Ryan spent the night?” Pam asked, her eyes starting to twinkle a little.

“Yeah, why?”

“Did anyone else stay?” she asked.

“I think Michael crashed on the couch downstairs,” Jim replied with a yawn.

“Did anyone else stay?” she asked, craning her head towards Jim’s face.

“I don’t know…why?”

“Did a certain…waitress stay the night?” Pam asked in a sing-song voice.

“You?”

“No…”

“Kelly?”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t know,” he replied, “maybe, she was still here when I came up here to crash with you.” Pam giggled mischievously. “Oh, which by the way, speaking of…you are a complete and total lightweight.”

“What?”

“You were drunk,” he said flatly.

“Was not.”

“Sure you were. I had to carry you up the stairs.”

“Aw, you carried me up the stairs?”

“See, you don’t even remember,” he said as he playfully swiped her nose with her thumb.

“I do too remember,” she insisted.

“Up until what point?”

“I remember arm wrestling Michael,” she stated happily.

**

“I can beat any one of you in arm wrestling,” she stated proudly as she looked around the room of men – and Kelly. Angela and Dwight had left the hour before once things started to pick up and get a little rowdier. As Pam watched the two of them leave she was certain that they had other things to do that night.

“Yeah right,” Michael said. “You’re just a girl.”

“So?” she puffed out her chest a little, maybe to make herself look stronger, but she wasn’t really certain it was adding any credibility to her original statement.

“How much do you want to bet?” he asked.

“Bet what, Michael?” Jim asked from the kitchen.

“I will bet you that I can beat her in arm wrestling,” Michael replied.

“How many drinks have you had?” Pam asked.

“Five maybe,” Michael replied.

“No way, man, it’s been a lot more than that,” Ryan stated as he pushed Kelly away from him for a brief second.

“Whatever, bring it,” Pam said as she slammed a fist on the table out of the spirit of competition.

“How much?” Michael asked.

“Twenty dollars,” she replied.

“I’ll bet fifty that she beats you,” Jim said as he stood behind Pam as she propped her elbow on the table.

“Ooh! Mikey is going to be richy tonighty!” he exclaimed happily.

“I don’t think so,” Pam scoffed as she took Michael’s hand in hers.

“Okay, are the teams ready?” Jim asked as he set his hands on Pam’s shoulders.

“Ready,” Pam replied as she narrowed her eyes at Michael.

“Ready a mundo,” Michael said with a grin.

“One, two, three, GO!”

Immediately, Jim, Ryan and Kelly all started rooting for Pam as she quickly shoved Michael’s arm over, not quite hitting the table.

“Oh come on, why won’t you cheer for me?” Michael asked sadly.

“Because Pam is going to win,” Kelly stated matter-of-factly, and just as she did, Pam slammed the back of Michael’s hand into the wood of Jim’s dining room table.

“Ha,” Pam said with a grin on her face. “Told you.”

“How did you do that?” Michael asked.

“Pay up,” she said holding out her hand. Michael grumbled as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out eighty dollars.

“Do one of you have ten dollars?” he asked glumly.

**

“I still don’t know how you did that,” Jim said as he felt himself drifting back to sleep.

“That’s what being engaged to a football player will do to you,” she said, “it gave me superhuman strength to beat anyone in a game of arm wrestling.”

“I’m sure,” he said as he yawned. She was silent for a few minutes and he relished the silence, he hoped maybe she had suddenly drifted back to sleep.

“Jim?” he groaned a little.

“What?”

“Thank you for a wonderful birthday,” she said as she kissed the bottom of his chin. He opened an eye and looked at her. She had a grin on her face and a sleepy look in her eye.

“You’re welcome,” he said as he kissed her forehead and closed his eyes again.

“Jim?” she asked again, her lips grazing his softly.

“Mm?” he asked without opening his eyes this time.

“I think I love you,” she replied. He opened his eyes this time and looked at her sleepily.

“Really?” she nodded and he smiled.

“I always thought I would be the first to say that,” he said quietly with a sleepy smile.

“Too late,” she said with a grin as she closed her eyes again and quickly fell asleep again.

January 23, 2007

“I get an art show,” Pam said, trying to contain her excitement as she slammed a sheet of paper down onto the top of the bar at the restaurant.

“What?” Dwight asked as he paused from the drinks he was pouring to look up at Pam.

“I get an art show,” she replied, a little louder and a huge grin trying not to creep across her face.

“I’m…I don’t follow,” he said as he shook his head a little.

“Ohmigod Pam,” Kelly said, seeming to emerge magically behind Pam.

“What?”

“You get an art show?”

“Yes!”

“Where is it going to be?” Kelly asked, wide eyes.

“Near the school, I think,” she replied. “I think it’s a gallery that the school owns.”

“So what’s so big about an art show?” Dwight asked. “I thought that was what artists do. They show their work…at art shows.”

“No, no,” Pam replied, “I mean, yes, they do…show their work….but this is different.”

“How so?” Dwight asked.

“The art school chooses five artists in the program – usually in their last semester of school – and they give them an art show,” Pam replied. “There are five different levels of the studio that the show is in, so each student gets their own level. The show is publicized in New York newspapers, throughout the entire university. It’s probably one of the best ways for an artist in the program to get noticed.”

“And you’re in the show?” Kelly asked happily, clutching her hands to her chest.

“I’m in the show,” Pam replied, unable to contain her huge grin any longer.

“Pam! Famous artists will see your work!” Kelly exclaimed.

“You really think so?” Pam asked quizzically.

“Of course!” Kelly exclaimed. “One of my friends was in the program a couple of years ago, right? She was this amazing artist, and she worked her butt off to get into that thing. She made it in, and she met so many people. Good people, people that have made a name for themselves.”

“Wow.”

“And you know where she is now, Pam? Do you?”

“I have no idea,” Pam replied as she shook her head.

“She has an art gallery in London. London, Pam!”

“Are you leaving us?” Dwight suddenly interjected.

“What?” Pam asked, turning her attention to Dwight, who had a sudden look of sadness cross his face.

“Are you going to be leaving us this spring?” he asked. “I mean, you’re graduating, right?”

“Yeah, I’m graduating,” she replied. “But I have no intention of leaving you guys just yet.” She smiled weakly at Dwight’s sudden, sad disposition. “I really doubt that I’m going to find a lot of work with a degree in art.”

“You could,” Kelly said optimistically. “Especially since you’re going to be in that show.” She nodded vigorously.

“Thank you, Kelly,” Pam said flatly. Kelly grinned a wide smile and quickly skipped back into the kitchen.

“Really, Pam,” Dwight said, “are you going to be leaving?”

“I’ll be here through at least the rest of the summer,” Pam replied. “Even if I do find a job with art, I really doubt it’s going to pay me enough for me to afford everything that I need.” Dwight nodded.

“I love it here,” Pam said with reassurance in her voice. “I’m not ready to leave yet.”

**

“I have something to tell you,” Pam said as she lay in Jim’s lap. “I’m nervous about something.”

“What is it?” he asked as he brushed some of her hair from her shoulder and turned her chin so she could look him in the eyes. She turned away from him and reached over towards her coffee table, picking up the sheet of paper she had received in the mail from the university telling her that she was one of the five art students chosen for the show.

“Here,” she said as she handed him the sheet of paper.

“You’re…” he quickly scanned the piece of paper. “You’re kidding.” His legs pushed up against her back and she sat up.

“Do you know about this?” she asked.

“I’ve heard of it,” he replied. “They do it once a semester…ask the best students in the program to be in it…”

“Yeah,” she said with a nod.

“This is amazing, Pam,” he said as he read through the letter again.

“Yeah,” she replied without a lot of emotion in her voice.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, noticing her hesitation. He would have expected her to be a lot more enthusiastic about an opportunity like this.

“I’m really nervous,” she replied.

“Why?”

“Well, it’s just when I signed up to be considered, I did it because I thought it would be fun…you know, get an art show, show off some of what I’ve done…just for fun. No pressure or anything,” she explained. “You should have heard Kelly today at work. She was ecstatic, she kept telling me about how publicized it is and how many people come and…well, I guess I knew that all along, but…”

“But what?”

“I just don’t know if I can do it now,” she said quietly.

“Why wouldn’t you?” he asked as he put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her back against his chest. “You have more than enough artwork here in your apartment that you can show. You’re really good, Pam.” She remained quiet and it seemed as if she was watching the snow falling outside. Jim ran his hands along her arms until she melted back against his body.

“I want to show my very best,” she said quietly. “I don’t know if I have enough.”

“I think that you have more than enough,” he said. “You haven’t showed me a whole lot of what you’ve done, but what I have seen in amazing.”

“If I had known it was so selective I wouldn’t have entered,” she said quietly.

“Why would you say that?”

“Because there has to be others that are better than me…” Jim sighed and pushed her away from him and turned her around to look her in the eyes. He planted his hands squarely on each of her shoulders as his eyes bore into hers.

“Pam,” he said calmly, gently, “no one is playing favorites here. They chose you because you are good. You are fantastic. You deserve this.” She nodded meekly and looked down at her lap. “You have plenty of time to get ready.”

“I know.”

“The show isn’t until late March,” he said. “And I can guarantee that everyone that loves you will be there to support you.”

“Yeah?” her face seemed to brighten a little.

“Of course,” he said as his hand trailed up the side of her neck.

“You promise?” she asked.

“I promise,” he replied with a smile as he leaned in towards her and kissed her softly.

February 20, 2007

“Ryan, I need you to cover the meeting with Thomas and the people from Seiko, can you do that?” Jim asked as he quickly typed on his computer.

“I can but why can’t…”

“Mr. Halpert, Mrs. Filipelli is here to see you,” the receptionist’s voice rang through Jim’s phone intercom.

“What?” Jim looked around frantically. Why was she here? At his office? “Fuck…um…can you wait just…”

“Sorry Mr. Halpert, she’s on her way right now…”

“Fuck!” he exclaimed as he punched his fist down on his desk. “Well Ryan, I really can’t make it now.”

“I’ll cover for you, man,” Ryan said with a nod, and he skirted away from the door just as Karen rounded it.

Jim pretended to be busy, to not notice that she had just stepped into his office, but she was like the cold winter air. She bit at him, and as soon as she had stepped into the room there was no doubting that she was there.

“I hope I’m not interrupting,” she said coolly as she walked across his office and took a seat across from him without any invitation to do so.

“You can’t just walk in here whenever you want,” he said.

“I don’t know about that…”

“Yeah? Well I do,” he stated firmly. “You can’t.”

“My company is thinking about absorbing yours,” she said as she lifted her briefcase up onto his desk, knocking over a picture frame and a cup of pens.

“Damn it, Karen,” he said as he scooped the pens back into their cup and moved as much as he could out of her wake of destruction. “What the hell are you doing here? And in the middle of the day?”

“I need you to sign some things,” she said as she pulled out a stack of papers.

“And you couldn’t just leave these things with the receptionist?” he asked.

“We both know how incompetent that receptionist is,” she replied. “I don’t need these papers getting lost.”

“What am I signing?” Jim asked as he pulled a pen from his drawer.

“They’re just papers that my lawyer needs the two of us to sign,” she replied with a shrug.

“Do I know what I’m signing? Have we already discussed the terms that are listed in these papers?” he asked. “You’re not trying to take my home away from me, right?”

“Yes Jim, we already discussed them, and no, I am not trying to take away that retched home of yours,” she said as she looked off to her right.

“You loved that home when I first bought it,” he said as he flipped through the pages to where he needed to sign.

Karen’s eyes scanned the walls of his office, not a whole lot had changed since the last time she had been there with the exception of a piece of artwork hanging in a frame on the wall.

“When did you get that?” she asked nodding towards it.

“What?” he asked looking around.

“That piece,” she replied with another nod towards it.

“Oh, that?” he asked, a wry smile on his face when he realized that she was looking at the piece of art that Pam had made him for his birthday back in September.

“Yeah, it’s gorgeous,” she replied with a smile.

“Thanks,” he said as he looked back down at the papers in front of him. “Pam made it for me.”

“Pam?” she asked, her eyebrows rose a little. “Who’s Pam?”

“My…girlfriend,” he replied, the tone of his voice carrying a hint of incredulousness.

“I didn’t realize that you had a girlfriend,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “We’ve been together for quite a while now.”

“Oh?” she leaned forward a little.

“Yeah,” he said with a quick nod.

“So what does she do?” Karen asked, tapping her foot a little.

“She’s an artist,” Jim replied without even thinking twice. “Hence…the art.”

“An artist?” Karen scoffed. “Jim Halpert dating an artist.”

“She’s wonderful,” he said quietly, flipping through more papers.

“Successful?”

“I suppose that you could say that,” he said with a shrug. “She’s in the big NYU art show next month.”

“Wait, wait,” Karen said holding up her hand. “She’s a student?”

“Yes.”

“You’re dating a student?”

“Yes.”

“How old is she?”

“Twenty seven.”

Karen scoffed again.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What did you do that for?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“You just completely…you know what you did,” he said.

“You’re dating an art student!” she exclaimed.

“So? I happen to like her a lot.”

“Oh really?”

“Well, she’s nothing at all like you,” he said. “So I’m rather fond of that.”

“I can’t believe I was ever married to you,” she said as she looked down at her lap.

“Well, the feeling is pretty much mutual at this point,” he said as she scrawled his signature a couple of times.

The two of them sat in a bitter silence for a few moments, neither of them wanting to acknowledge the other’s presence.

“At least she’s a good artist,” Karen said quietly as she looked back over at the artwork hanging on the wall.

“She’s an amazing artist,” Jim said quietly as he scrawled his name once more and shoved the papers back over towards Karen.

“My lawyer is thinking that it’s going to be another month for everything else,” she said quietly as she picked up the papers and stuffed them back into her briefcase.

“For everything else what?”

“Finalized,” she stated flatly.

“Does this mean come April I never have to acknowledge you again?” he asked bitterly.

“Hopefully, yes,” she replied. She stood up and turned around quickly.

“When will I hear from you again?” he asked before she got to the door.

“I’ll give you a call sometime next month,” she replied. “I think we’ll probably only have one more meeting.”

“And you swear it will be over?” he asked. “No more of…this.”

“I swear,” she said firmly and she left his office as quickly as she had entered.

March 22, 2007

She walked to their table, their lunch bill in her hands.

“So Pamela,” Michael said, careening his eyes towards her. “Why are you working today?”

“Why not?” she asked with a smirk.

“Because I believe it’s your art show tonight,” he said with a wink.

“And you better be coming,” she said returning his wink and flashing a smile towards Jim whose face automatically sunk.

“Oh, I certainly would not even think about missing the newest and greatest New York artist’s show,” Michael said proudly. She giggled and walked away towards the kitchen.

When she emerged from the kitchen to collect the bills that she had just distributed around to her tables, she was stopped immediately by Jim.

“Hey,” she said with a grin.

“Listen, I have to tell you something,” he said gravely.

“What?” she pulled him aside, and tried not to let his seemingly sudden sour disposition get her down.

“It’s about your art show tonight,” he said quietly.

“What about it?” she asked.

“I’m…I’m not going to be able to make it until later,” he replied, a pained look on his face.

“What? Why not?” she asked.

“It’s um…” he turned his head away and started to mumble softly.

“I can’t hear you,” she said.

“It’s Karen,” he said softly.

“What?”

“She um…I might have told her about a month ago that you were in the art show at NYU, and I think that she might have figured out when the opening night is and…well, she scheduled our last legal meeting for tonight,” he said quickly, fumbling over a few of the words.

“What time tonight?” Pam asked in a low voice.

“Seven thirty,” he replied.

“Fuck!” she exclaimed, a little louder than she had probably intended.

“Pam, I am…I am so, so, so sorry,” he said grabbing her by the arms and trying to pull her close to him.

“Can’t you like, reschedule it or something?” she asked, her eyes pleading. “Anything!”

“I wish I could but…” he searched her face and she could tell that he wanted anything else in the world than to be stuck in a meeting the opening night of her art show.

“Jim…I need you there,” she said quietly, the smile completely faded from her face.

“You don’t need me,” he said as he ran his hands down her arms and took her hands into his. “You will do absolutely fine on your own. And I’ll be there! I just might be a little late, is all.”

“How long is this meeting with the lawyers going to last?” she asked.

“I can’t imagine it going any longer than an hour,” he replied. “And just think, after tonight…I never have to deal with anything of hers ever again.” Pam bit her bottom lip and woefully nodded. “I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

“Okay,” she said with a slow nod.

“I love you,” he said quietly, brushing his fingers against her cheek and she smiled meekly.

“Me too,” she said quietly before he turned around to go back to his table.

She stood still in the back hallway; she had forgotten what she had been going out in the dining room to do in the first place. Tears that wanted to escape from her eyes were trapped and she could feel her throat tightening. She took a couple of deep, shaky breaths just as Angela was coming from the kitchen.

“Angela,” she squeaked, grabbing her by the elbow.

“What?” she asked turning to look Pam in the face. When she saw the pained expression, her stern disposition seemed to melt away a little.

“Can you go…go pick up the checks on my tables?” she asked quietly. “I need…” she took another deep breath and pointed towards the other end of the hallway.

“Yeah,” Angela nodded and gave Pam a reassuring pat on her shoulder.

**

She stood on the second floor of the building and looked around. It was like being in a museum of her. All of the artwork on the entire floor was hers. Every final project that she had made for her classes was hanging on the walls. There was a long white wall over near the stairs that was entirely portraits of the people that she knew, the people that she was friends with; both Dwight and Jim were affectionately displayed on that wall. Near the windows, she had hung frame after frame of nature watercolors. In the middle of the room she had charcoal sketches of the city and watercolors of children playing in the park outside of her apartment. She even had her abstract work that she had painstakingly done hanging up on a couple of columns.

If she was lucky, she might sell several pieces that she had listed. There were a few paintings that she wanted for herself though – the portrait of Jim, the abstract work of art that she had created before the two of them were even in a relationship. There were certain pieces that felt like they were a part of her and no matter how much someone might want them, she knew that there was no way she’d be able to part with them.

 

She walked around the creaky wooden floor nervously. She could hear people filing in on the floor below her. She hoped that people would like what she had done. She hoped that all of her friends would show up. She hoped that Jim wouldn’t be too late.

She nervously wrung the program in her hands, waiting for the dean of the art program to come up and get her so that he could introduce her to the crowd downstairs. She swung her handbag around on her wrist and nearly jumped right off the ground when her cell phone started to ring and vibrate.

“Hello?” she asked, not bothering to check who was calling.

“Hey Pam,” Jim replied on the other line of the phone.

“Was the meeting cancelled?” she asked eagerly.

“No, we’re just about to start,” he replied and her heart sunk again. “Listen, I just had to call you and wish you good luck before all of the people arrive. I’m thinking about you and I really, really wish I was there and not here.”

“I do too,” she said quietly.

“So…good luck, you will be phenomenal, I promise.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll see you when I see you.”

“Okay…”

“Bye Pam.”

“Bye Jim…” she sort of trailed off when she heard his phone click shut – ending the call.

“Pam, you should really turn off your cell phone,” the dean said as he rounded the stairs for her.

“Sorry, it was just…”

“Never mind. It’s okay. Come on! Let’s go, let’s go!” he said as he hurried her around the stairs. She quickly followed, touching her hair a couple of times to make sure that there weren’t any rogue curls escaping from her ponytail.

She froze when she reached the rest of her colleagues. There were so many faces that she didn’t know stretched out in front of her. She didn’t recognize a single person with the exception of a couple of her professors and maybe a couple of people who had been in classes with her at one point.

The dean stood in front of her and the four other students she was standing alongside of. Her mind wandered as he introduced the five of them and she briefly smiled when she heard him say her name. She was completely lost in a daze.

The people in the crowd applauded politely at the end of the dean’s speech and Pam followed the other four students blindly, as they all made their way to their respective rooms and floors where there art was prominently displayed.

**

She felt awkward, sitting in the corner of her room, cradling a glass of red wine in her hands and watching as unfamiliar faces passed through the room studying, critiquing and enjoying her works of art. No one had come to talk to her once. No one had actually complimented her (or criticized her) to her face yet. She really felt quite lonely in the room. All the time she wondered how much longer Jim would be, she wondered if anyone that she actually knew would show up. It was the opening night. She would be in this gallery for the rest of the weekend and the artwork would be up for the next week for people to come and see.

 

“Pamalama!” she heard a familiar voice exclaim from the top of the stairs. Her head immediately shot up from her program and an enormous smile crossed her face when she saw Michael and his new girlfriend walking up the stairs. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt this happy to see Michael.

“Michael! You made it!” she cried happily, resisting the urge to run over and hug him.

“Of course,” he said, “you seem surprised.”

“Well, you’re the first person that I know who has actually shown up,” she said glumly.

“Oh nonsense,” he said, shaking his hand at her, “plenty of people will show up, the night is still young!”

“Michael, it’s 8:30 and I’m leaving at eleven,” she said.

“See? You still have a couple of hours left,” he said with a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “So what would you say is your best piece of art here?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied with a bashful shrug. “That’s really for you to decide.” She walked with him into the center of the room and he looked around.

“Wow Pam,” he said nodding to himself, “you are really talented.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely,” he said as his eyes scanned the walls. “Wow!” He rushed over to the wall of portraits.

“Do you like them?” she asked.

“They’re amazing!” he replied. “I feel like I’m looking at photographs.” She felt a flush rise through her cheeks.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile and nodded. “Thanks.”

**

It was 9:30, still no sign of Jim. She had even tried calling him during a lull and had only been able to reach his voice mail. Either he wasn’t picking his phone up or his phone wasn’t on at all. Before 9:30, she had seen Michael, Dwight and Angela – Dwight had immediately demanded to buy his portrait upon seeing it. She still had thought that she might see her mother though and Kelly had promised she would come and that she might bring Ryan.

In any case, by 9:45, she was tired of standing on the floor that all her work was displayed and she decided that she needed to go and see some of the other students’ work.

She walked up to the top floor and looked around, smiling at the other art students and openly complimenting their work. She was pretty sure that she had seen most everything that her colleagues were displaying and it did not take her long to go through everything that there was to see. At ten she walked back down to the second floor where her work was displayed. She nearly tripped over the last step and when she regained her footing and looked around the room, her heart froze.

Roy was there with her mother. She hadn’t seen him since she had left him nearly two years ago. He looked different – more rugged, larger somehow. Immediately she thought that he looked a lot better than the last time that she had seen him. Of course, the last time that she had seen him was a couple of years earlier and he was a wreck over her leaving him.

She had almost completely forgotten about him – with the exception of the fleeting thought now and again. After about eight months of not seeing him, he had stopped contacting her and he had stopped trying to send her gifts. She had welcomed it and she had moved on.

Now, seeing him standing in the middle of the room, looking at an abstract piece of art with her mother made memories come flooding back. She didn’t know what to do. She knew that she needed to greet them, and she knew that she would have to talk to him. What would she say? Her eyes searched the room frantically, hoping that Jim had arrived. When she didn’t see Jim, she fumbled through her purse for her phone, hoping that maybe he had called. Nothing.

“Pam!” her mother cried as Pam quickly stuffed her cell phone back into her purse.

“Mom!” she cried with a little bit of forced enthusiasm as her mind still raced. Her mother quickly rushed towards her and threw her arms around her daughter.

“I am so proud of you!” her mother said as she held Pam close.

“Thanks,” Pam said with a gracious nod as they pulled away from one another. They shared a brief contented smile, before Pam’s attention turned back towards Roy. “So…”

“You want to know what Roy’s doing here, don’t you?” her mother asked in a hushed voice.

“Kind of, yes,” Pam replied.

“I told him about the show, Pam,” she said, “don’t be upset. That’s the last thing that I want.”

“I’m not upset,” she said quietly, “just…surprised, I guess.”

“Good,” her mother said with a nod. “It’s just…I was on the phone with him a while ago and I had mentioned that you were going to be in this art show and he expressed a real interest in coming. I couldn’t say no to him. He really wanted to see how you were doing.” Pam nodded silently. “Come on, come say hello.”

The two of them walked over to where Roy stood, looking intently at the abstract work of art that Jim had helped her to create her first semester at the school. Pam stood nervously behind him, hoping that he wouldn’t want to see her – or maybe he would completely ignore her.

Her mother tapped on his shoulder and whispered something in his ear; he immediately turned around with a nervous smile on his face.

“Pammy!” he exclaimed and she smiled as earnestly as she could.

“Hi Roy,” she said with a gracious smile. He quickly swept her up in a large hug and unpleasant memories from her past came flooding back into her mind.

“So this all…” he waved his hand around, “this is all yours?”

“I drew it all, yeah,” she said with a nod.

“Wow,” he said with a sigh. “Wow, I never would have guessed.” She shrugged and felt her cheeks turn a little pink.

“Do you like them?” she asked nervously.

“I love them,” he replied quietly. “I just wish…I kind of wish I knew what some of them were…” he glanced at the abstract painting he had been looking at again, “like this one here.” She smiled.

“That’s my life,” she said. “In abstract form.”

“It’s real pretty,” he said with a courteous nod.

“Thank you,” she said. She was about to open her mouth to say something else before she heard a loud, “Ohmigod!” from behind her. She turned around to see Kelly with a huge grin on her face and clutching onto Ryan’s arm as they rounded the stairs.

“That’s Kelly,” she said with a smile as she walked across the room to greet the two new familiar guests.

“Ohmigod Pam,” she gushed, “this is so cool. And this is all yours?”

“Yeah, it’s all mine,” Pam replied with a smile and a nod.

“Ohmigod,” Kelly gasped as she broke away from Ryan and rushed over a corner of the room and Pam could swear that she heard Ryan let out a sigh of relief.

“Ryan,” Pam said quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Have you heard anything from Jim?” she asked nervously.

“No,” Ryan replied, shaking his head. “You haven’t seen him?”

“No,” she said sadly.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and for the first time she thought that he might actually be sincere.

“Yeah,” she said with a slow nod and turned back to where her mother was standing.

**

It was eleven and the gallery was closing and she still had not heard anything from Jim. She was visibly upset by his absence and she had no idea what she was going to do when she inevitably saw him again. She put on a happy face for her mother, for Roy, for the last couple of people that were still at the gallery as she stepped outside to catch a cab home.

“Thank you for coming mom,” she said as he embraced her mother tightly. “And thank you too, Roy.” She smiled up at Roy, but refrained from giving him another hug.

“I’m really proud of you,” her mother said again, it was just as welcoming as the first few times that she had said it.

“Thanks,” Pam said with a nod.

“I am too, Pammy,” Roy said weakly. “And I…for the record…I’m really sorry.” Pam bit back the tears that she could feel forming behind her eyes. The tears weren’t just from her mother telling her that she was proud, they weren’t just from Roy telling her that he was proud and sorry, it was everything that had transpired that night. She had heard so many people mention how nice her artwork looked, she had actually sold some of her pieces to people, and she even had the artist – who she had thought was the best – tell her that he was absolutely in love with her natural watercolors. However, there was one thing that hurt her more than anything and would be what she would cry about through the night was Jim not coming to the opening night.

She said her last goodbyes to her mother and Roy and stepped out in the street to hail a taxi. As soon as one stopped for her and she was safe inside, away from anyone else, she let go and started to cry.

**

She stepped out of the cab with a tear stained face. She paid the cab driver and tipped him a little too generously, but she didn’t even care right now. She fumbled through her purse for her cell phone and immediately called Jim’s cell phone. As soon as it started ringing in her ear, she could hear a ring coming from near her door. She walked a little faster, approaching her front door. She saw Jim leaning against the doorframe, his head down, his hand reaching into his pocket to pick up his phone.

Pam snapped her phone shut and stomped up to him.

“Where the fuck were you?” she practically screamed at him. He jumped at the sound of her voice and his eyes widened hearing her curse.

“I…”

“I waited, and waited!” she cried, she wanted to throw her phone at him, she wanted to throw her purse at him…she wanted to throw something at him. “You were the only one that I wanted to see there tonight!”

“I’m sorry, it was just Karen…”

“Karen?” she practically gasped.

“The meeting ran a lot longer than I wanted to, and she tried to sneak…”

“I don’t care!” she cried, the tears coming again as she twisted her key in the door. “Everyone was there! Everyone!” She stomped up the stairs and he blindly followed her. She didn’t say anything more until she reached the door of her apartment, not wanting to anger any of the other tenants in the building.

“Everyone was there, huh?” Jim asked as he leaned against her wall as she furiously twisted the keys in the locks of her door.

“Yes,” she seethed.

“Who’s everyone?” Jim asked.

“Michael, his girlfriend, Dwight, Angela, Kelly, Ryan, my mother…” she paused as she opened up her door. “Roy.”

“Who?”

“Roy.” He searched his mind trying to figure out why the name was so familiar. “My ex-fiancé.” She kicked the door shut and threw her bag to the floor, her keys flying across the room.

“Oh god…” he rubbed his forehead. She looked at him, her eyes narrowing. His face was full of remorse.

“I only wanted to see you,” she whimpered quietly as she wiped a couple of tears from her cheeks.

“I will be there every day this weekend,” he said urgently. “I promise. I will come tomorrow when the gallery first opens and I will stay until it closes. I swear.” He walked to her and took her hands but she quickly twisted away. “Pam…”

“Get out,” she said quietly.

“What?”

“Just…leave, please,” she said quietly, as she sat on the edge of her bed and buried her face in her hands.

“But Pam…I couldn’t help it, I really couldn’t…” he stammered, “and it’s over now, everything is…it’s done, it’s settled…”

“I just…” she sighed heavily in her hands and he could tell that she was sobbing, “please.” He was torn. He didn’t want to leave her like this, especially when he felt as sorry and as bad as he did. On the other hand, he wanted to do what she wanted and not anger her any further.

“Pam…” she looked up at him with tears running down her cheeks.

“I’ll talk to you when I’m ready,” she said quietly. “Now…please leave.” He nodded and turned around. Slowly leaving her apartment and vowing that he would never do anything like this ever again.

April 3, 2007

Pam was an emotional wreck for the week following her art show at the gallery. As Jim had promised, he showed up both Friday and Saturday night and stayed near her the entire time for the entire night. She thanked him for coming and she was happy that he had been there, but she couldn’t bring herself to forgive him for not coming to the opening night – she didn’t even know why.

He continuously called her for the next week, through the weekend, usually when he called she was sleeping or she was just too irritable to think about talking to him. She was miserable. She didn’t want to drag Jim down into her bitter feelings and she simply didn’t want to talk with him.

**

She awoke early, early in the morning on the third. It felt like her entire midsection was being stabbed with knives. She looked at her clock, it was only six thirty and she didn’t have to be up for another couple of hours. She tried to curl back in bed, but the pain would not go away. She sleepily crawled out of bed and as soon as she stood up, she just wanted to crawl back under the sheets. She yawned and looked down towards the floor. She was immediately shocked awake when she saw blood on her upper legs and a little at the hem of the t-shirt that she had worn to bed.

When she went to the bathroom, she felt her heart sink and the pain stabbed at her stomach. She suddenly realized why she had been so tired lately and she suddenly knew why she was so stubborn to forgive Jim and why she had been so irritable around him in the past week and a half. She cleaned herself up the best that she could in her sleepy state of mind and walked back out into the main room of her apartment.

She threw on some jeans and a clean shirt and picked up her cell phone. She thought about calling Jim but at the last minute as she threw on her coat, she decided not to. She didn’t want to bother him with this until she knew for certain.

She quietly left her apartment and rushed out onto the street and hailed the first taxi that she could.

“Where to, miss?” the cabbie asked when she slipped into the backseat.

“Just take me to the nearest hospital,” she replied quietly.

**

“Mr. Halpert, I have a call for you on line two,” the receptionist said dully, paging Jim in his office.

“Can it wait?” he asked.

“I don’t think so…” she replied a bit apprehensively. “It’s the hospital.” He immediately picked up the phone and pressed ‘Line 2’.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Jim Halpert?”

“Yes,” he replied, his heart racing, he didn’t know which hospital was calling or who the call was concerning, but any call from any hospital was enough to get him feeling nervous.

“We have a friend of yours here right now, she said that we should call you,” the dull voice on the other end of the line explained.

“Who is it?” Jim asked before the voice could finish.

“Pam Beesly.”

“What hospital?” he asked quickly, jumping upright and grabbing his keys. He waited for the response. “Okay, don’t let her leave,” he interrupted the person on the other end of the line before they even finished speaking, “I’ll be there right away.”

**

He rushed into the waiting room that they had directed him to. He quickly rushed to the front desk.

“Hi, I’m looking for Pam Beesly,” he said quickly to the receptionist.

“Jim?” he heard a meek voice ask from close by.

“Pam?” he looked over towards where the voice came from and he saw her curled up into herself sitting on two chairs in the corner. Her back was against the wall and her knees were pulled tight into her chest. “Pam…” he rushed over to her and knelt on the floor next to her. Her face was red and covered in tears.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered against her knees as his hand ran along her arm.

“Pam, are you okay?” he asked in the most comforting voice he could muster, his fingers trailing in the ends of her hair that fell around her shoulders.

There was a small cough above the two of them, and they both looked up at the same time. A doctor in blue scrubs and a white overcoat was standing next to where Jim knelt and Jim quickly stood to his feet.

“Are you…Jim?” the doctor asked. He didn’t quite look at Jim though; he looked over at Pam instead who nodded meekly.

“Yes,” Jim replied, reaching out his hand for the doctor’s.

“Well, you can take her home if you’d like,” the doctor said in a soothing voice. “She needs lots of rest and she’s probably going to be in a little bit of pain for the next couple of days. The worst of the bleeding is over and you should probably…”

“Wait, let me interrupt you,” Jim said quickly. He looked down at Pam, who refused to make eye contact with the two men standing in front of her.

“What?”

“What happened?”

“The nurse or receptionist didn’t tell you?”

“No…” Jim replied, realizing that he probably didn’t even give either of them a chance to tell him what had happened the way that he had spoken with the hospital staff on the phone before he arrived.

“Pam had a miscarriage,” he said. Jim immediately heard a weak and muffled cry escape from Pam’s throat and he felt his entire body seize up.

“What?” Jim gasped.

“Pam had a miscarriage,” the doctor repeated smoothly. “Anyway, just take her home, have her get some rest. She might be a little emotional for a while. However, she should be fine and completely back to normal within a week or so.” Jim nodded dumbly and looked back down at Pam, whose head was buried in her knees again.

“Thanks,” Jim said with a nod. The doctor nodded back and walked away. Jim took a deep breath and sat next to Pam’s feet. “So…”

“I’m sorry Jim,” she whispered, her knees shaking.

“Do you want to go home?” he asked. She nodded weakly. “My place or yours?”

“Yours,” she said softly, unable to come face to face just yet with her blood-stained sheets.

**

Her entire body ached as she walked up the stairs. She had fallen asleep on Jim’s shoulder in the taxi to his apartment, which she welcomed because it meant that she didn’t have to speak to him with another person present. He helped her through the door and once inside; she immediately dragged herself over to his couch and curled up in a corner.

“So are we going to talk about this?” he asked as he sat down near her. She wanted to sleep, but instead she just found herself crying again. “I’m not upset…I just…” he sighed heavily. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”

“I didn’t know,” she said quietly. “I mean…I’ve been so stressed with school and the art show and work, that the first month I missed I just chalked it up to stress.” She took a deep breath, uncurled a little and wiped a couple of tears from her eyes. “Do you have any Kleenex?”

“Yeah, hang on,” he said as he quickly stood up and walked to the bathroom, emerging with a full box of Kleenex which she graciously pulled into her arms as if it was a teddy bear.

“And then I realized this morning when I woke up bleeding everywhere that it had been at least two and half months since…well, yeah…and that’s when I knew,” she said as she dabbed the tissue at the corner of her eyes. Jim nodded. “I’m sorry that you had to find out the way that you did, I’m sorry I had to find out the way that I did…” she sniffled. “I thought about calling you when I took myself to the hospital.”

“Why did you even go to the hospital?” he asked.

“My mom had a couple miscarriages back before she had me,” she replied, “she always told me that if I was ever in that situation and if I thought that I might be more than a month or two along that I should go to the doctor right away because that’s the best way to take care of it.” She sat up straight and immediately fell the other way, crashing against Jim’s chest and she sobbed quietly. “I’m so, so sorry, Jim.”

“It’s okay,” he said as his arms instinctually wrapped tightly around her body and his fingers twined themselves in her hair.

“It’s just…I should have known,” she said quietly against the cotton of his shirt, “I was eating more and I was always so damn tired, I was irritable…I was so horrible to you…”

“No…”

“Yes I was,” she insisted. “I was really awful and I…” she took a deep shuddering breath, “I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t know what to say in response, he just held her tightly in his arms and gently rocked her back and forth a little while she softly cried.

“Do you…do you need anything?” he finally asked quietly once her tears and weak cries began to taper off.

“I just kind of want to sleep,” she replied.

“Are you supposed to work today?” he asked.

“Fuck,” she whispered, and the tears started to come again. “I can’t work…not today.”

“Shh…no, it’s okay,” he said as he ran a hand over the back of her hair. “I’ll call Dwight. I’ll get you today and tomorrow off, okay?”

“Thanks,” she mumbled against his shirt.

“Do you need any food? Anything to drink?” he pulled himself away from her and looked in her eyes. She bit her bottom lip and shook her head slowly.

“I just want to sleep,” she said softly. She seemed to be searching his face and she looked back down and examined his clothing. “You should probably go back to work.”

“I’ll stay here with you,” he said quietly. “I can call back and say that I need a personal day.”

“No,” she said a little more firmly than before, “no, go back to work.”

“You sure?” he asked. “Because I will stay here.”

“No…I mean, yes, I’m sure,” she said, “I’ll probably sleep all day anyway.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” he nodded slowly. “Do you want me to pick you up anything when I come home?” She thought for a couple of minutes.

“Can you take my keys?” she asked. “I…well…no, maybe you shouldn’t…”

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“I just…it’s my bed,” she replied quietly. “Um…I bled…there’s a lot of blood…” her eyes moved quickly back and forth as she looked down in her lap. “The sheets are probably ruined…and…I, well…”

“I’ll take care of it,” he said. “Do you want anything else from your apartment?”

“Can you maybe grab a couple changes of clothes and maybe my black sketchbook and the blue tin of charcoals?” she asked.

“Clothes, black sketchbook and blue charcoals,” he said with a nod.

“That’s…I think that’s all,” she said quietly. He nodded again and stood up.

“If you need anything else, you can give me a call on my cell phone or at my office,” he said. “I will be back here in second if anything happens.” Pam smiled weakly and nodded, feeling tears flooding back into her eyes again. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to go grab you a pillow and some blankets.”

She could hear him quickly run up the stairs and she slowly slid the length of her body down on his couch, curling her knees towards her chest and she closed her eyes. Her stomach didn’t hurt as bad as it had when she had woken up that morning, but there was still a dull ache that stabbed away at her abdomen. Her head was fuzzy and every single negative emotion that she could possibly feel was eating away at her subconscious.

She smiled when she felt a heavy blanket draped over her and she opened her eyes as he tucked the blanket in against her.

“Lift your head,” he said as he pulled a pillow from the floor. She lifted her head up off of the couch and he tucked it in underneath her.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

“Now remember,” he said. “If you need anything, call me.” He knelt down on the floor and kissed her temple softly.

“Okay.” He ran his hand through her hair, brushing some of her curls off of her face.

“Pam?”

“Mm?” she closed her eyes slowly as he quickly brought his lips tentatively against hers.

“I love you,” he said and she smiled, “I’ll be back between five and six tonight.”

**

“So…Jim,” Michael and Ryan were standing in his doorway the second that he returned to work and sat down in his desk chair.

“Hey guys, I’m really…”

“So where have you been?” Michael asked. “Care to explain why you missed our eleven o’clock meeting this morning?”

“Michael…”

“We’re lucky it wasn’t any more important or we would have been fucked,” Ryan chided.

“Guys…”

“Where were you?” Michael asked with an expectant look on his face.

“I had to go get Pam,” he replied quietly. “She was in the hospital.” Ryan immediately slunk away and Michael stood dumbstruck in the doorway.

“What happened?” Michael gasped.

“She…” Jim stumbled for the words, “it’s not important.”

“Is she okay?” Michael asked.

“She’s fine, she’s fine,” Jim replied, “she’s at my place right now.”

“Well why aren’t you with her?”

“She told me to go back to work,” Jim explained. “She said she’d probably sleep the rest of the day.”

“So she’s okay,” Michael assured to himself.

“She’s fine,” Jim said with a nod.

“What happened?” Michael asked. Jim sighed and looked away towards his computer where there was a full inbox of unread e-mails to get to. Michael stepped inside of the office and closed the door softly behind him.

“Michael, I think that’s something that’s between me and her,” he said with a nod.

“Is it serious?” Michael asked.

“No, it’s fine. She’s fine,” Jim stated again.

“Did she do something to herself? Is she sick?”

“Why can’t you just leave it alone?” Jim asked, though he knew perfectly well that by nature, Michael Scott was an extremely curious man and would not let the subject matter go easily.

“Sorry, I just…she’s such a nice girl,” Michael said. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to her.”

“Yeah, neither do I,” Jim said with a sad sigh.

“So why was she at the hospital?” Michael persisted. Jim paused for a long moment, wondering if Pam would really want him to tell Michael what had happened to her – to them, really. In a way it was their news…

“She might have been…pregnant. And she might not be anymore,” Jim said quietly. As soon as he said the words, Michael’s mouth dropped open.

“Pam is pregnant?” Michael asked in a gasp. “Is it yours?”

“She had a miscarriage, Michael,” Jim replied, feeling a rather inexplicable rush of sadness course through him as he said the words. “And of course it was mine.”

“Oh Jim, I’m so sorry,” Michael said.

“Yeah…” he nodded and sighed again.

“Hey listen, if you want to take off early today, you can,” he said quickly. “I don’t want to keep you from her or anything.”

“Thanks,” Jim said, “I’ll think about it.”

**

Jim left work at three o’clock, taking advantage of Michael’s offer for him to leave work early. It wasn’t very often that he was given the opportunity – and he actually couldn’t remember the last time that he was offered to take a couple of hours off work. The circumstances that he was allowed the early leave may not be ideal, but at least this way, he could get to Pam’s apartment for what she needed, stop by the grocery store and get back home before too late in the evening.

He went to Pam’s apartment first, fumbling with a couple of the locks on doors to get to her apartment. When he finally made it into her small living space, he could immediately see why she might not want to come back. He quickly gathered up the black sketchbook and her blue box of charcoals from a bookshelf across from her bed. He then went through a couple drawers of clothing and pulled out a couple items of clothing that he saw her in quite frequently. A pair of cotton pants, a pair of well worn jeans, a couple of soft t-shirts and he blindly pulled out a couple pairs of underwear from her underwear drawer.

He found it a little difficult to look at her bed. She hadn’t been lying when she fumbled over her words earlier in the day. She had certainly bled. He stripped her comforter off of her bed and then quickly stripped off the sheets. Normally, he would have tried to get the stains out, but this was something that he didn’t want her to be reminded of, so he quickly found a trash bag and threw the sheet in there. If she wanted, he would buy her a new set. He quickly packed everything that she wanted into a bag and left the apartment as quickly as he had arrived – he was anxious to get back to his place and see her again.

When he stepped outside, he almost crossed the street but realized that there was an open flower shop on the corner. He quickly backtracked and stepped inside to the aromatic little shop. There were bouquets of early spring flowers everywhere. There were some exotic plants and there were some beautiful potted flowers. He walked over to a large display of tulips and daffodils and picked up a bouquet of light pink and white tulips. He didn’t know what kind of flowers that Pam liked, but the tulips were pretty and he thought they smelled wonderful so he bought them. If his past with women taught him anything, it was that no woman could resist a bouquet of flowers when they were feeling sad.

**

He arrived at home feeling like he was maybe carrying one too many things. His leather messenger bag was slung over his shoulder, bouncing against his back and filled with some of Pam’s things. In his right hand he had the bouquet of tulips, a grocery bag and in his other hand he had two more bags of groceries. He looked around the room, hoping that maybe Pam would be awake and she would be active, but when he looked over towards to the living room, he only saw her arm, slung over the arm of the couch.

He put down everything except for the tulips and walked over to where she slept and sat on the coffee table.

“Pam,” he whispered, leaning over and tucking a few strands of hair behind her ear. The back of his hand softly caressed her cheek until her eyes fluttered open. She yawned and stretched her legs to the other end of the couch and smiled a little.

“Hey,” she whispered.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“My tummy’s sore,” she replied as she pulled herself up a little bit.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Here.” He pulled the tulips up from his feet and handed them to her. A big heartfelt smile crossed her face and she gingerly took the flowers and inhaled their scent.

“You got me tulips,” she said quietly as tears started to form in her eyes again.

“Yeah, something told me that when the girl that you love is not feeling so great that you should get her flowers,” he said with a smile. “Unfortunately, I had to go with my gut with the tulips because I have no idea what kind of flowers you like.”

“The tulips are wonderful,” she said quietly, almost whispering. “You’re wonderful.”

“So are you hungry?” he asked. “Have you eaten anything today?”

“Yes and no,” she replied.

“What do you want to eat?” he asked.

“Anything,” she replied. “Something…”

“Comforting?”

“Yeah,” she said with a small nod.

“Okay, you stay here,” he said rubbing her shoulder softly as he stood. “I’ll make us some dinner.”

“Okay,” she said as she slumped back down into the couch.

“Have you been sleeping all day?” he asked from the kitchen as he started to rummage through the refrigerator. Pam poked her head up over the edge of the sofa and started to watch him.

“Pretty much,” she replied. “I got up a couple of times for a drink of water or to use the bathroom, but that’s it.” She watched him as he worked quickly in the kitchen. “What are you making?”

“Why?”

“I’m just curious,” she said.

“You’ll see,” he said with a wink.

He quickly finished putting together their dinner. He got out two blue plates and two large glasses. Each plate was given one grilled cheese sandwich and each glass was filled with chocolate milk. He carefully balanced the four items in his hands and brought them to where Pam was sitting – fully awake now.

“What’s this?” she asked with a grin.

“Well, whenever I was feeling out of it as a kid, my mom made me grilled cheese sandwiches and chocolate milk,” he said as he handed her the larger of the two sandwiches.

“Thank you,” she said. The two of them ate in silence for a couple of minutes until Jim spoke up.

“So how does it feel?” he asked quietly.

“How does what feel?” she asked as she nibbled off a corner of her sandwich.

“The whole…all of this,” he replied quietly, trying not to tread on dangerous ground. She shrugged.

“I think it happened before…a long, long time ago, like four or five years ago maybe,” she said. “It wasn’t as bad as this though. If it did happen, I hadn’t even been…you know…for a month. I didn’t have to go to the hospital or anything, it just came and went.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah…” she said with a sigh as she set down her sandwich. “I mean, it hurts. Physically and emotionally.”

“Do you think you would have wanted it?” he asked softly after taking a sip of chocolate milk.

“A baby?” she asked, Jim nodded. “I don’t know…would you?” He shrugged this time and she sighed heavily. “It would have been a bit sooner than I would have liked. I always figured that I would wait until I was thirty to have children.”

“Yeah…”

“I would have kept it though,” she said quickly. “I think I’d probably be a decent mother. I’m sure that you’d be a wonderful father if you…um…if you wanted to be, of course.”

“Yeah,” he said with a thoughtful nod. “So…you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I will be at least, in a day or two,” she said and paused. “Are…are you going to be okay?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said quickly. “Yeah…” She nodded slowly and the two of them sat in an awkward silence for a little longer.

“It’s not like I won’t be able to have children again either,” she said quickly, breaking the silence. “Some people miscarry really badly and it hinders them in the future…” she stopped herself. Jim just nodded because he honestly didn’t know if she was going to be ready to go into a conversation about future children just yet.

“I’m just…I’m glad that you’re okay,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said with a small smile.

“I got that call from the hospital this morning and I thought that you had died or something, I don’t even know,” he said. “I hadn’t been that concerned about someone in a real long time.”

“You were there a lot faster than I thought you would be,” she said.

“What can I say? I’m a worrier for the people that I love,” he said as he polished off his sandwich and when he looked over at her, he noticed that her smile was a little brighter.

“Thank you,” she said softly. He turned towards her and smiled.

“You’re welcome.”

May 10, 2007

“Pam?”

“Yeah Jim?”

“Are you working today?”

“I’m working tonight, but I’m not this afternoon.”

“Good, can you come by my office after lunch?”

“You want me to come by your office? You’ve never asked me to come by there before.”

“I know, I have something for you.”

“Can’t you just give it to me tonight?”

“I could, but I don’t think you want to wait for this one.”

“What is it?”

“See, you don’t want to wait.”

“Well, when you hook me in with a line like that, it’s kind of hard to.”

“To what?”

“Wait.”

“Can you come by this afternoon?”

“Of course.”

“Try and aim for around two if you can.”

“Will do, Halpert.”

“See you then, Beesly.”

**

She finally felt like herself again, she felt like she had shed her old skin behind and she had emerged from her cocoon victorious, beautiful, and a fully grown woman. She had forgiven Jim for missing the art show, the two of them had worked through the trying week that followed her miscarriage and after all of that was over and done with, he had helped her finish out the school year.

She graduated from NYU the first weekend in May. She had decided not to walk at the commencement ceremonies and instead she had opted for her own graduation festivities of sorts at The Golden Beet. She had comforted Dwight when he started to get teary about the idea of her leaving the restaurant and she had comforted Kelly in the women’s bathroom when Ryan had shown up to Pam’s party with another girl.

The past couple of weeks Pam had been working a lot at The Golden Beet and searching for a part time job that she could work in the field of visual arts. She had a couple of leads on paid internships and she even had an interview coming up soon with a small publishing company that was looking for an illustrator – her dream job. For the most part though, she had enjoyed having the free time to draw or paint whatever she wanted, work at the restaurant with the people that she enjoyed and just generally bask in the new life of spring that was all around her wherever she went.

**

She had never been to Jim’s office before – inside, that is. He had pointed the building out to her on several different occasions, but it seemed like he enjoyed avoiding the place as much as he possibly could when he didn’t have to be there.

She rode up the elevator to the fifth floor – the floor where he worked. The advertising company was quite large and it took up three floors of the building – from level five to level eight. When she stepped off the elevator she was immediately greeted by the receptionist sitting at a large circular table, filing her nails.

“Um, hi,” Pam said as she walked up to the desk. “I’m here to see Jim Halpert.”

“Does he know you’re coming?” the woman drawled.

“Yes,” Pam said with a nod.

“One second,” she said as she picked up her phone and dialed a couple of numbers. “Mr. Halpert, a…I’m sorry, what’s your name?” Pam opened up her mouth to speak, “Never mind, go ahead.”

“What office is his?” Pam asked meekly.

“Second to last door on the right,” the receptionist replied, hardly even looking up.

“Thanks,” Pam said with a quick nod before walking briskly down the hallway.

She admired posters that were lining the halls of what she could only assume were companies that the people working in the building sponsored. Some of them were extremely good, some of them she had seen countless times in the past. For the first time, she started to realize how prolific Jim actually was.

She nearly passed right by his open door. She heard a familiar voice call her name and she quickly took a couple of steps back, grinning as she looked in through the door of Jim’s office. He had a large office – huge office. The wall facing the hallway was lined with windows and when she walked in, she felt like she had stepped into a museum. For such a large office, it was very sparsely decorated. There were two potted trees in two corners, one near the door and another on the opposite side of the room. There was a large desk towards the end of the room and three good-sized armchairs that faced the desk, and Jim sat in his ergonomic desk chair on the opposite side. Behind the desk was a long set of floor to ceiling window panes that looked out towards the city.

“Hey Pam,” Michael said with a large grin on his face as she walked in the room, taking it all in.

“Hi Michael,” she said with a generous smile, which was really aimed more for Jim.

“You made it!” Jim exclaimed, standing up.

“I found it!” she exclaimed in reply.

“Come here, you,” he said as he opened up his arms and she quickly skittered across the room and he pulled her into his embrace. It was as if they hadn’t seen each other in a week, when in reality, they had just seen one another the day before.

“I can’t believe this is where you work,” she said quietly. “This is so nice!”

“You think this is nice, you should come see my office,” Michael said with a proud grin. Pam turned and looked at him.

“I don’t know what kind of an invitation that is,” she said, “but I think I’m going to decline, I rather like what I have right here.”

“Can you give us a few moments alone?” Jim asked. “I’ll give you a call when we’re done.”

“Of course, Jimbo,” Michael said as he stood up and walked towards the door. “Pam? Nice seeing you.”

“You too, Michael,” she said with a grin as he closed the door behind him. She turned her attention back towards Jim, his arm still around her shoulder. “So, what’s the big present?”

“Well aren’t we eager?” he asked, she nodded vigorously and he chuckled to himself. “Okay, come, come.” He pulled her over in front of his chair and softly pressed on her shoulders, indicating that she sit on his desk. He sat in his chair and wheeled himself between her knees.

“I think that office sex is more of a gift to you than it is for me,” she said with a wry smile.

“The present is not sex,” he said. He nodded thoughtfully to himself, “Though it would be a lot more inexpensive.” She playfully slapped him on his shoulder, but her eyes quickly widened.

“My present is expensive?” she asked. He nodded. “What is it? I can’t wait!”

“Okay…” he started to open up one of the drawers on the side of his desk and quickly closed it. “No, you know what, I’m going to make you guess what it is.”

“What?” she asked, he almost waited for her to groan.

“Let us play…a truth and two lies,” he said, the smile ever present on his face.

“I believe, Mr. Halpert, that the game is two truths and a lie,” she said mimicking his smile.

“I know, but that would just be too easy, I think,” he said quickly.

“Okay, out with it,” she said as her legs quickly swung back and forth in anticipation.

“Okay,” he said. “Your present is, and remember; only one of these is the actual present…”

“Yes yes,” she said.

“Your present is…an extensive summer long program at one of the best art schools in the United States…”

“What art school?” she asked mischievously.

“Uh…”

“That’s one of the untrue ones,” she said quickly before he could say anymore.

“Okay, next is a two week vacation to the Bahamas,” he said, and quickly before she could interrupt him, “and the last is a two week vacation to Paris.”

The smile immediately disappeared from her face and she stared into his face.

“Which one is the truth?” she asked nervously.

“Which one do you think is the truth?” he asked.

“I know which one I want to think is the truth,” she replied, the smile returning to her face. He bit his lower lip and she immediately mimicked the gesture.

“Okay then,” he said as he opened up the drawer. “Since I’m sure that you don’t want to tell me which one you hope is the truth and have that not be it…” she nodded quickly. “Close your eyes.”

“What?” she asked.

“Just close your eyes,” he replied with a smile.

“I hate you,” she said.

“You won’t in a minute, close your eyes,” he said as he waved his hand over her face, making sure that she had really done what he said. He leaned over and opened up the drawer of his desk, not taking his eyes off her as he searched through the drawer for what he was looking for.

“No peeking,” he said as he caught her squint open one eye. She squeaked a little and immediately turned her head away. He grabbed what he had been looking for in his hands and returned to the position that he had been in beforehand.

“Hold out your hands,” he said, and both of her hands immediately shot open on top of her lap. “Ready?”

“Yes!” she cried, the suspense of the moment wracking her senseless.

“Okay,” he said as he gently laid two plane tickets in her hands. “You can open your eyes.”

Her hands immediately grasped the tickets in her hand and she brought them close to her face.

“Plane tickets…” she said before anything could even register.

“And what do they say?” Jim asked, unable to wipe the smile from his face.

“JFK…” she said slowly. “CDG…”

“Charles de Gaulle,” he said quietly.

“Paris,” she barely whispered and bit her bottom lip as a smile crossed her face. Jim nodded slowly. “We’re going to Paris?” She swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat.

“For two weeks,” he said softly.

“You are…you’re taking me to Paris,” she choked on the words, “for two weeks.” He nodded. She opened her mouth to say more, but the words became lost in her jumbled mind and all that she could do was squeeze out a couple tears of happiness and leap into his lap with a loud squeal of happiness that was followed by ecstatic giggling.

“So I take it I chose the right destination?” he asked, his voice muffled against her hair and the tight grip of her arms around his chest.

“Yes, yes,” she said pulling away from him, tears in her eyes, and the biggest smile that he had ever seen on her face. “Oh my god, yes.” She leaned forward and started kissing him. She kissed him on his lips – twice, she kissed him on his cheeks – four times, she kissed him on his forehead – three times, and she kissed him on the tip of his nose – once.

“I’m glad,” he said with a smile that no where near matched hers, but at this point, matching the smile on her face was impossible.

“So when are we going?” she asked as she pulled away from him and looked at the tickets again.

“A couple of weeks from now,” he replied. “I forfeited our seats at the spring dinner gala, I hope that’s okay.”

“Okay?” she asked. “I think that you could have told Dwight to fire me and I would still be okay.” The smile quickly disappeared. “Oh my god. What about my job? Can I really leave for two weeks?”

“I talked to Dwight,” Jim said quietly.

“You…Dwight…he knows?” she asked.

“I decided that it was a good idea to double check with him before purchasing the tickets,” he replied. “I was able to push him to two weeks. Actually…it’s more like a week and a half but…”

“I don’t care,” she said as she threw her arms around his neck again.

“That’s what I thought,” he said with a smile.

“As long as I get to see the Louvre,” she said against his shoulder.

“We’ll see the Louvre,” he said softly, “and I’ll take you to Musée d’Orsay, and we’ll go to Versailles and the Eiffel Tower and anywhere else that you want to go.” She pulled away from him again and looked him in the eyes.

“You, Jim Halpert,” she said softly, “are the greatest man that ever lived.” He laughed and pulled her close again. “And you are totally getting the sex of your life tonight,” she added with a giggle.

“And all I had to do is take you to Paris,” he said.

June 4 – June 13, 2007

June 4

She had never been on a plane for more than three hours before. She had barely ever been away from the Northeast part of the United States before. Here she was, boarding a plane at nine o’clock in the evening, Jim’s hand reassuringly holding hers, ready to not only take her first trip in years away from the Northeast, but to cross the Atlantic Ocean and go to the city that she had dreamed of traveling to since she was a girl.

She felt like Kelly, really. The way that they had the plane scheduled was that the passengers would sleep through the flight. They would arrive in Europe at around 4 AM their time, late morning Paris time. Pam couldn’t figure out how she was going to get a single wink of sleep. She was too excited. Every word that came out of her mouth to Jim was either a variation of: “Oh my god”, “so do you think”, “Paris” and “wow”.

He teased her about slipping her drugs mid-flight. She had always thought of herself as a nervous flyer, and he did have the sleeping pills if she needed them. However, there was something that told him, no matter how many patches of turbulence they might hit; there was no way she was going to think twice about those pills that were located in their carry-on luggage.

June 5

He roused her awake as the plane started to make it’s descent into Charles de Gaulle airport. He was amazed that she had fallen asleep. Somewhere in the middle of watching “The Last Mimzy” she had completely passed out. She had been asleep for about three hours and as soon as he gently nudged at her arm, her eyes flew open.

“Are we here?” she asked excitedly, looking around as if she hadn’t just been asleep. Her eyes were still tired; she looked like she definitely needed more than just three hours of sleep.

“We’re getting there,” he replied with a smile as his hand found the top of her knee.

**

He wasn’t one to call for a taxi or driver beforehand. Really, he wasn’t. It was just that he had been to Paris in the past and the airport was damn near impossible to figure out. He had gone through a taxi company to arrange someone to meet them at their gate and take them to where they were staying in the middle of Paris.

As soon as Pam set foot outside of the airport, she looked around eagerly.

“This doesn’t look like Paris,” she said with a bit of apprehension in her voice. Jim chuckled at her as he pulled his suitcase behind him.

“The Paris that you’re thinking of is still about a half hour to an hour drive away,” he said with a smile as he exchanged a couple of brief words with the driver that he had hired back in New York.

“What?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll be there soon enough,” he said as he ushered her into the backseat of the car.

**

She kept dozing off as they drove along the highway into Paris.

“Wake me up when you see something that I’ll recognize,” she said quietly before she slumped against his shoulder.

“What makes you think I don’t want to sleep too?” he asked with a yawn.

“You slept more than I did,” she replied quietly. “And you’re significantly less excited than I am.” She yawned and fell asleep for the next fifteen minutes until he nudged her awake.

“Oh damn, you just missed it,” he said as her eyes fluttered open.

“What? What did I miss?” she asked urgently, her eyes immediately at the window of the vehicle. She practically crawled across his lap to get a view out of the window. She stretched across his lap and her fingers gripped the leather against the door. He put an arm around her back.

“Okay,” he said quietly, “wait for it…wait for it…” the car drove a couple more blocks. “There.” She gasped sharply at her first view of the Eiffel Tower.

“I can’t believe it,” she whispered against the glass of the window.

“What?” he asked as she pulled away.

“I’m here,” she replied, the lids of her eyes starting to tear.

**

The taxi pulled up along a side street right off the main road that ran along the Seine.

“We’re here,” the driver said in a thick accent as he turned off the vehicle and immediately stepped outside to get the bags from the trunk.

“This is our hotel?” Pam asked, looking up at a rather non-hotel looking building.

“Oh no, Pam,” Jim replied, “this is better than a hotel.”

“What…is it?” she asked suspiciously.

“This is an apartment,” he replied.

“What?” she asked.

“I rented an apartment for a couple weeks,” he replied with a shrug. “The company actually owns it, and a few others. They lease it out to anyone who wants to stay in it.” Her mouth simply dropped open, unable to comprehend the entire situation. “You want to go see your home for the next week and a half?” She nodded dumbly as Jim picked up their bags and the driver drove off.

 

She walked around the living room. It wasn’t a huge apartment. Certainly, it was bigger than her apartment in the city and she was certain that the cost to rent the place for two weeks was probably the price of an entire month’s rent for her.

“Do you like it?” Jim asked as he walked out of the bathroom, drying his hands on his jeans.

“I…I…” she ran her hand along the back of the antique couch in the living room. “Speechless…”

“Wait ‘til you see the view,” he said with a wink as he rushed to the other side of the room and started to draw back the curtains. “Actually…close your eyes.” She bit her lower lip and nodded, closing her eyes at his command. He threw back the heavy curtains and the room was immediately flooded with light. “Okay…” he reached out for her hands and pulled her over to the large window. He stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

“Can I open my eyes?” she asked with a quick breath.

“Go ahead,” he replied. Her eyes fluttered open and she gasped, grabbing Jim’s hands with her own and leaning forward just a little. In front of her eyes was a magnificent view of the Seine River, picturesque Parisian buildings lined each side and arched bridges stretched along the river for as far as she could see.

“Do you know what you’re looking at?” Jim asked as her head turned to the right.

“No,” she replied as she shook her head. He broke a hand away from hers and pointed at a large building almost out of sight from the window.

“That,” he said as he pointed, “is the Louvre.” Her hand quickly flew to her mouth and she quickly turned around, her eyes filled with tears of happiness. She didn’t even say anything; she simply threw her arms around Jim’s neck and pressed her mouth firmly against his. At this point, she almost didn’t even care about the museum anymore. She was so happy that she was here and she was so happy that she was with him.

June 6

She barely even knew what jet-lag was, but apparently, according to Jim, she didn’t succumb to it. She slept heavily through the night, cradled to sleep in Jim’s warm arms and the sounds of the city.

She was the first awake in the morning, nine o’clock. She showered, she dressed in the best “Parisian” outfit that she had brought that she would still be comfortable wearing all day. She rummaged through the bag of baked goods that Jim had bought from a bakery down the street the previous evening when she had completely crashed and picked out a buttery croissant to eat for her breakfast. Then she ran back into the bedroom and tackled the sleeping Jim in bed. She felt like she was a kid again and it was Christmas morning.

**

“Where do you want to go?” Jim asked as they stepped outside.

“The Louvre,” she replied.

“Of course, the Louvre,” he said with a nod. “You don’t want to spend the day just walking around?”

“No, Louvre,” she said quickly.

“Wha…”

“Louvre!” she countered.

“I guess that there is no ifs ands or buts around this one,” he said with a grin as he wrapped an arm around her waist. “We are going to the Louvre.”

June 9

They spent three days, at Pam’s request, touring every hallway, ever room, ever little nook and cranny accessible to the public inside of the Louvre. Jim had never actually expected that she would spend three days inside of the museum – looking at the most famous works of art in the world, but it worked well. The first two days they spent inside of the museum it was raining and he didn’t really want to go walking around Paris when it was gloomy and wet. He was quite happy that Pam wanted to stay inside.

The third day at the museum, they finished their tour of the museum with a walk through several rooms filled with archaeological antiquities and one last look at some of DaVinci’s greatest masterpieces. The two spent the rest of the day walking around the gardens and parks surrounding the building.

Jim could not remember a time that he had ever seen Pam as happy as she was in those three days and he felt so happy that he had been the one to provide it all to her.

**

He brushed the curls from her face as he watched her still asleep early in the morning on the ninth. Sunlight was streaming in between the cracks in the curtains and he knew that today would be the perfect day to take her to Versailles. With any luck, the fountains would be running.

“Pam,” he whispered against her ear. “Paaaam…” She groaned and rolled over towards him and pushed her hands against his chest and she stretched awake.

“Mm?” her eyes opened sleepily.

“Morning,” he said.

“Morning,” she said with a sleepy smile. “I had the most wonderful dream that we were in Paris…oh wait. We are.” She giggled quietly and he shook his head at her – she had been saying the phrase since their first night there.

“Where do you want to go today?” he asked, and quickly continued before she could interject, “Keeping in mind! We have already seen the entire Louvre.”

“I think that I’m going to sleep all day,” she said with a happy sigh. “Actually, no, I’m going to sleep the rest of my time here. I’ve seen everything I want to see.”

“You sure about that?” he asked.

“No.”

“I was thinking that we could go to Versailles,” he said as his fingers danced along the skin on her cheek, her jaw and her neck.

“Versailles…” she said, searching her mind. “Where is that?”

“It’s a little out of the city,” he said, “we’ll have to take the RER there.”

“What’s the RER?” she asked.

“It’s one of the metro lines,” he replied quietly.

“How do you know all of this?” she asked.

“I’ve seen it all before already,” he replied.

“So you’re just dragging me around to all of your favorite places?” she asked as she curled up against his chest and ran her fingers through the hair on his chest.

“In a way, yes,” he replied thoughtfully. “But I think you would love Versailles.”

“Why?”

“It’s a massive palace,” he replied. “With tons and tons of fountains and gardens.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said, “you could bring some of your art things with you and you could spend the day drawing…”

“And you would like that?” she asked raising her eyebrow.

“I can entertain myself,” he replied with a smile. “Come on. You’ll love it.”

“Promise?” she asked.

“Of course,” he replied.

**

They slept in a little more. It was a Saturday, after all. Pam dressed in her favorite springy dress and Jim packed her sketchbook, charcoals and his camera in his messenger bag. He would stop on the way to their final destination and pick up some food for their lunch. They would have a picnic sometime that afternoon.

They boarded the RER going to Versailles around eleven thirty in the morning. Pam sat next to the window and watched as they left the area of Paris that she so frequently associated with being “Paris” and they traveled through the areas of the outskirts until finally they arrived at the end of the line.

“So Halpert, where is Versailles?” she asked as they stepped outside of the train station and started to walk along the street.

“You’ll see it soon enough,” he replied coolly as they walked at a steady pace along the sidewalks.

As they got closer and the palace came into view, Pam immediately gasped and grabbed Jim’s arm.

“Jim! I know this place!” she exclaimed.

“Of course you do,” he said with a small laugh.

“Why didn’t I know this was Versailles?” she asked as they approached the large gates leading up towards the palace.

“I don’t know,” he said with a smile and a shrug. They followed a steady stream of visitors up towards the main part of the palace, and stopped short of another gateway.

“Why are we stopping?” Pam asked expectantly.

“We are stopping because you have a few choices here,” he replied. “If we go in over there” he pointed towards a doorway, “we can go see the most famous parts of the palace – the Hall of Mirrors, Marie Antoinette’s bedroom, and so forth. However, I happen to think that this area is very overrated and rather uncomfortable when there are this many people there.” Pam nodded. “On the other hand, we can go through those doors over there and see some of the more exclusive parts of the palace like the servants’ and queen’s quarters, lesser known areas of the palace.”

“Okay…” Pam said continuing to nod.

“Or, finally, we can go straight through this archway here and go straight to the gardens,” he said pointing towards what appeared to be a clearing.

“Where do you want to go?” Pam asked.

“I’m perfectly happy spending the day in the gardens,” he said with a smile.

“Then we shall go to the gardens,” she said with a nod.

 

“Wow…” Pam gasped as she looked out over the massive lawn that stretched out in front of them: the fountains, the ponds, the impressive sculptures. Jim was pleased that the fountains were running, which only made everything look even more impressive.

“You like it?” he asked.

“I don’t even know what to say,” she replied as she looked around.

“You want to go exploring?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she replied a happy sparkle in her eyes.

She practically leapt ahead of Jim, and quickly skipped down the stairs that led down into the gardens.

“When you see someplace you want to sit and hang out, or if you want to eat anytime soon, let me know,” he said as he watched her walk briskly down the main path.

“This way!” she called as she quickly ducked down a side path to explore some of the hidden gardens and fountains tucked in amongst the trees.

**

They stayed at the palace until people started to leave around five or six in the evening. Pam had filled up the first few pages of her sketchbook with images of fountains and orange groves.

“Are we going to go anywhere special tonight?” she asked as she leaned against Jim’s shoulder on the RER back into Paris.

“Do you want to go somewhere special tonight?” he asked as his arm went around her shoulders.

“Maybe,” she replied quietly. “I had no idea that we would actually spend the entire day in there.”

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she replied, “but I’m really glad that we did.”

“You liked them, huh?” he asked.

“I loved them,” she replied. “And all of those fountains! Those were insane!”

“I know!”

“It’s baffling to think that all of that belonged to one person at one point in history,” she said shaking her head.

“Kind of makes you realize why the French got so pissed at the royal family, huh?” Jim said with a smile. Pam nodded.

June 10

She spent that Sunday drawing like she had on the Saturday. Jim insisted that the two of them go to Père Lachaise cemetery. Pam had teased him the entire way there – teasing him about taking her to a cemetery, teased him about the very notion of stopping at a cemetery as a major attraction.

As soon as the two of them stepped into the cemetery however, Pam’s arms wrapped protectively around her sketchbook and box of charcoals, she realized what a great opportunity this could prove to be. It wasn’t very often that she drew dark art. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the idea of it – all of the dark art that she had seen over the years she had loved. She was just never able to find the beauty in the depressing images that passed by her daily and she had certainly never visited a cemetery that looked quite like this.

It was like walking through a city, really; a very quiet, somber city. Some of the mausoleums were the size of a small vacation home. Every once in a while, she and Jim would pass by a particularly elaborate mausoleum or grave and she would look at the name. Many names she recognized – Chopin and Oscar Wilde, for example.

They spent a lot of the day walking through the cemetery, admiring the elaborate graves and memorials but nothing really, really caught Pam’s attention until they reached a clearing and she looked off to a far corner shaded by trees.

“What’s over there?” she asked, pointing towards some large statues that she couldn’t quite make out, but she thought they looked a little like ghosts. Jim opened up the map in his hands that he had purchased from a vendor just outside of the cemetery gates and examined it.

“I don’t know, where are we?” he asked as he rotated the paper around in his hands a few times, trying to find where they were.

“I think…” she looked over to the map. “Maybe here?” She pointed to a spot near a corner.

“Maybe…” he said. “Let’s just go figure it out ourselves.” She smiled and took his hand in hers and happily walked towards the large statues.

 

“Wow…” they both said gasping up at the ghastly statues.

“Auschwitz,” Jim said quietly.

“I need to draw it,” Pam said suddenly, quickly walking around to Jim’s back and rifling through it for her sketchbook and charcoals.

“Seriously?” he asked as he looked up at the statue, unable to tear his eyes away. It was like the haggard skeletons were staring into his soul.

“Seriously,” she replied as she quickly walked over to a bench and opened her sketchbook in her lap.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you draw anything like this before,” he said as he followed her.

“I haven’t,” she said quietly.

“It’s kind of…grim,” he said with a furrow in his brow.

“Haunting,” she said quietly as her black charcoals scratched the surface of the paper in her lap.

“I’m uh…” he looked up and looked around. “I’m going to walk around a little bit more.”

“Okay,” she said with a nod.

“Are you going to be here?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she replied.

“I’ll be back in like, twenty minutes,” he said as he stood up.

“I’ll be here,” she said with a smile.

**

That night he took her to what she considered to have been the fanciest restaurant she had ever been to in her life. There was no English menu and she was thankful that Jim knew a little bit of French because if he hadn’t, there was no way she could have ordered. He didn’t let her look at the prices, no matter how much she begged to see how much he was paying – she didn’t want him to spend this much on her.

He ordered a bottle of red wine for their dinner – he wouldn’t tell her the price, but by the taste of it, she figured it was probably a lot. He ordered them a cheesy vegetable appetizer that she certainly couldn’t pronounce, let alone figure out what was in it. He ordered her a chicken dish for her dinner that she was absolutely blown away by and after she was finished she didn’t know how she was ever going to face the food that she cooked for herself in her tiny kitchen ever again. He even ordered dessert for the two of them. He ordered her crème brulée and he ordered himself cream puffs, which he generously shared with her.

After their dinner, they walked back to their apartment, even though Pam wasn’t quite sure if she would even be able to walk after all of the food the two of them had consumed for dinner.

“Where do you want to go tomorrow?” he asked as he laced his fingers through hers and ran his hand against the concrete barrier between them and the river.

“I don’t know,” she replied dreamily.

“Does that mean I get to choose again?” he asked.

“Sure,” she replied.

“I want to go to the Musée de l’Eroticisme,” he replied with a devilish smile. She slowed their pace and she looked up at him quizzically.

“I understand ‘musée’,” she replied. “Museum…but the rest…” Her eyes were filled with questioning and he laughed a little.

“The museum of…”

“Erotic?” she asked, biting her bottom lip in confusion. He laughed, almost giggled, actually.

“There’s a museum of eroticism in the Red Light district,” he said with a wry smile.

“What?” she asked, an inevitable smile on her face. “You want to take me to an Erotic Museum.”

“Come on,” he replied. “I really wanted to go last time I was here but uh…someone didn’t want to go.”

“Really?” she asked, fully stopping now.

“Really!” he exclaimed.

“I don’t know…” she said, smile on her face.

“Come on,” he said. “If you don’t like it then…we can go to the Louvre again.”

“Really?” she asked, her eyebrow arched.

“Sure,” he replied. “Because believe me, I’ve read reviews about this place, and I don’t think there’s any reason that you won’t like it.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” she said as she rolled her eyes and the two of them started walking again.

“So can we go?” he asked.

“I don’t care,” she replied, “sure.”

June 11

Sex shops, sex theaters, porn stores, anything that you could imagine having to do with sex lined both sides of the street.

“I can’t believe that you talked me into this,” Pam said shaking her head as Jim pulled her into the Musée de l’Eroticisme. She couldn’t help but feel the crass, sex-frenzied teenager that was inside of her start to giggle with delight the second the two of them stepped inside of the museum that was completely devoted to sex.

She stood behind Jim as he purchased their tickets, giggling and trying not to giggle as she looked around at all of the sex memorabilia that filled the room they were in.

“Are all seven floors like this?” she asked, whispering into his ear.

“Are you embarrassed?” he asked as he turned around and shook his head at her. She giggled again and he couldn’t help but laugh at her.

They rounded the corner and were immediately immersed in a world of sex. There were paintings on the walls, there were trinkets and toys arranged and displayed in cases.

“They really don’t waste any time getting to the sex, do they?” Pam asked, trying to keep a straight face and take the museum seriously. She turned around to a television screen. “Oh my god!”

“What?” Jim asked, turning to see what she was looking at.

“I think it’s the world’s oldest porn,” she said, trying to hold back her laughter.

“I never even knew they had porn this old…” Jim said with a thoughtful nod, trying to hold back laughter of his own.

They made it through the first floor, stifled giggles, pointed fingers every once in a while and embarrassed glances at one another and others that were there as well. When they walked up to the second floor, the giggles came again. More sex toys, more sexual art, anything that one could possibly imagine dealing with the subject matter of sex was in this building.

A couple more floors up, however, the mood changed. It was as if one had to make it through all of the memorabilia to get to the actual history. Higher up in the building, the museum explained the history of prostitution in the area, the history of sex in the area and how this area of Paris came to be the way that it was. The giggles and embarrassed glances started to cease as they made their way up to the very top.

“This was a pretty cool place,” Pam said with a nod as they made their way back down the stairs.

“Told you,” Jim said with a smug look on his face, he looked down at the plan of the museum in his hands. “Wait! We haven’t seen it all yet!”

“Really?” she asked sarcastically. “I think that we’ve seen more than I ever thought I’d see in my entire life.” He laughed at her.

“No, there’s a basement,” he said. “Care to visit the 20th century now that we’ve visited all the rest?”

“Might as well,” she said with a shrug as they stepped down onto the ground floor and then made their way down into the basement.

The basement was different than the rest had been. It was flashier, it was more…pornographic. Certainly, the rest of the museum had not been for the typical family audience, but there was something about the basement…it was more Playboy or Hustler where as the rest of the museum had felt more like actual art.

It was small, there wasn’t a whole lot down there, and the two of them made their way around fairly quickly before Jim stopped Pam in the middle of the room.

“Look at those,” he said pointing to the left.

“What?” she asked looking at what, at first glance seemed to be just a normal sitting area, upon closer inspection… “Are those…sex chairs?”

“I don’t know what else they would be,” he said with a wrinkle in his nose. She stifled her giggle at first, but it bubbled up inside of her until it came out as loud laughter.

“Oh my god!” she said, covering her mouth to quiet herself.

“Hey, hey Pam,” he said as he nudged her arm. “You uh…you want to take a ride of one of those?” He raised his eyebrows suggestively a couple of times, only making her break down into laughter even more.

“No, no I can’t say I do,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes.

They both walked towards the stairs and sighed, smiling at one another contentedly.

“You ready to go?” she asked.

“Are you?”

“I think so,” she said with a nod. The two of them walked up the stairs, hand in hand.

“So how did you like it?” he asked as the two of them stepped outside once again.

“I don’t think we need to go to the Louvre again,” she replied.

“Good,” he said with a nod. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

June 12

He rolled over onto her hair and quickly picked his head up and ran the back of his hand against his mouth, hoping he hadn’t drooled on her. Not that she would probably care all that much. He had never seen her as happy as she had been in the past week – ever. As their last day in France started to roll around, he wondered if he’d ever see her this happy again.

Her head rolled over and she stared him contentedly in the eyes.

“Morning, Halpert,” she said with a lazy smile.

“How long have you been awake?” he asked.

“About a half hour,” she replied. “I’ve been savoring the feel of the French bed.”

“You still have one more night,” he said and she groaned softly.

“No,” she said closing her eyes tightly and shaking her head. “Can’t we just move here? We can live in this apartment here and you can work in the advertising business here in Paris and I can be one of those street artists!” He laughed softly.

“I don’t think either you or I know enough French to justify living in Paris at the moment,” he said with a smile.

“I can learn!” she exclaimed. “Bonjour! Au revoir! Je m’appelle Pam! Je voudrais un sandwich du fromage!”

“Wow,” Jim said with a nod, “we are certainly set if we ever need cheese sandwiches.”

“They are your favorite,” she said as she poked his nose.

“True,” he said. “But I think that our friends in the United States would miss us.” She moaned and rolled back and forth quickly.

“I don’t want to leave,” she said with a pout.

“Aw, but we have to!” he said with a sad smile, she sighed heavily and kissed him quickly. “However, we do still have one more day left.”

“True, we do,” she said.

“So what do you want to do?” he asked.

“Can we go have a picnic by the Eiffel Tower for lunch?” she asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Can we go to Notre Dame?”

“You want to go visit Quasimodo?” he asked with a smile.

“Absolutely!”

“Absolutely we can go,” he said with a nod.

“And…can we ride in one of those river boats that I’ve seen all week long?” she asked.

“Certainly,” he replied. “Do you want to do anything else? Any other museums?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “Will we really have time with everything else that we have on the agenda for the day?”

“Probably not, actually,” he said thoughtfully. “I can certainly take you to another really nice restaurant for dinner though.”

“You certainly could,” she said, “but I kind of feel bad about how much money you’ve spent already.”

“You have no idea how much I’ve spent,” he said quickly.

“This is true,” she said with a nod.

“Maybe I won a sweepstakes that you don’t know about,” he said as he wrapped an arm around her.

“I don’t think you did,” she said narrowing her eyes.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said as he quickly ducked in and kissed her lips.

“But…” he kissed her again.

“Do you always ask how much your presents cost?” he teased as he kissed her again.

“No but…” another quick kiss.

“Shhh,” he put his finger up against her mouth and she quickly nipped at his fingertip. “Oh, I see how it is…” he quickly nipped his teeth against the tip of her nose. Her jaw dropped slightly and her mouth formed a small ‘o’.

“So it’s a fight, huh?” she asked as she quickly rolled her hips over his and pinned his shoulders to the bed.

“Is this how we’re going to spend the morning?” he asked as he raised an eyebrow suggestively.

“When in Paris…” she replied as she quickly buried her head against his neck and started nibbling at his collarbone in the sexiest way that she possibly could.

**

They didn’t emerge from the apartment until nearly noon that day. Pam immediately requested that they get food and then walk to the Eiffel Tower – she was absolutely starved for food.

They made their way down some side streets until they were able to find a small grocery store where they bought some fruit, cheese, and several drinks as well. As they neared the tower, they searched up and down the streets for a bakery – finally finding one that was sending the intoxicating scent of fresh bread and sweets out into the street.

“There,” Pam said, immediately pointing towards the building at the corner. They walked into the small patisserie and Pam marveled at all of the goodies lining the walls and the cakes and tarts in chilled cases.

“What do you want?” Jim asked, turning to her as her eyes hungrily devoured everything within sight.

“Definitely a loaf of bread,” she replied, pointing to the long baguettes behind the cash register. “And…” her eyes scanned the cakes and pies in front of her. She turned to Jim with a pained expression on her face.

“What?” he asked, imitating her slight pout.

“It’s too hard!” she exclaimed.

“That’s what she said!” he quickly interjected and she stifled a giggle, nearly snorting at him.

“Seriously!” she exclaimed. “I mean…” her eyes quickly darted back and forth. “Just pick something!” She quickly turned her back and closed her eyes. She started to nervously tap her foot as she heard Jim say a few things in French that she couldn’t comprehend, but she was certain that she heard the word ‘chocolate’ somewhere in the jumble of words.

“Ready?” he asked, pressing his hand against the blade of her shoulder.

“What did you get?” she asked eagerly.

“You’ll have to wait,” he replied with a smile as he led her out of the small shop.

**

The two of them spent two hours slowly eating their lunch in the sun and just over to the side of one of the most famous monuments in the world. They enjoyed watching the people pass by them as they lazily ate and they enjoyed pretending like they were a French couple, openly sharing a kiss every now and again when there weren’t too many people nearby.

“Are you ready for le pièce de résistance?” Jim asked as he reached into the bag at their feet and pulled out a white box from the bakery.

“Oh, look at you Mr. Fancy French Talker,” Pam replied, her eyes twinkling.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she said with a wide smile.

“Okay…” he opened up the small box in his hand to reveal a small chocolate cake composed of layers of mousse and a hard chocolate top.

“Wow,” she said, her eyes wide.

“Do I know how to pick dessert or do I know how to pick dessert?” he asked.

“You know how to pick dessert,” she replied. “I have to share this, don’t I?”

“Yeah, you do,” he said with a smile.

**

They rounded out their day with a visit to Notre Dame, exploring the area inside of the church free of charge to the public. They walked around the church afterwards, enjoying the architecture of the structure and admiring the gardens that surrounding it as well. After visiting the church, they finished the day with a Seine boat tour that took them down the river so they could admire all of the sights and major attractions of Paris – all while sitting down.

The boat dropped them off close to the apartment. The sun had set and Pam was already feeling quite sleepy.

“So…are you ready to go pack?” Jim asked, his arm linked around Pam’s waist.

“Do we have to?” she asked, looking sleepily into his eyes.

“I think so,” he replied. “There will be a car here at ten tomorrow morning to pick us up.”

“Ten?” she asked.

“Ten,” he replied. She sighed heavily and rest her head on his shoulder before they went to cross the street.

“I’m going to miss this city,” she said quietly.

“I’m going to miss you being in this city,” he said with a smile.

“What?” she asked.

“You’re so happy here,” he replied. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you as happy as you have been in the past week and a half.” She smiled bashfully.

“Well, you have to understand that no one has ever taken me on a trip like this,” she said. “Ever.” He nodded thoughtfully.

They arrived at the front door of the building the apartment was located and Jim fumbled for his keys.

“Jim?” she asked as he searched through his pocket.

“Yeah?” he asked as he turned the key in the lock. She opened her mouth as he pushed open the door, but nothing came out. “Pam?”

“No…” she said as she shook her head. “Nothing, I just…I love you, is all.” He smiled.

“I love you too,” he said as he pulled her into his arm and planted a firm kiss on her lips before the door shut behind them.

**

She was sleeping by the time he finished up his packing. He threw the suitcase up onto the window sill and pulled the last few things of theirs from the closet. He reached his hand into a silk lined pocket of the suitcase and pulled out a small velvet box and opened it.

He had bought the ring a couple of weeks before leaving from New York on the vacation. He hadn’t told anyone that he had harbored the idea of proposing to her. He hadn’t even dropped any hints to her that it could be coming. He had been searching for the perfect place, the perfect moment to ask her and he was certain that he would find that moment in Paris – it was the most romantic city in the world, after all. While sitting by the Eiffel Tower that day, he had thought maybe – maybe – but it just wasn’t quite right. Earlier the previous week he had considered proposing to her in the atrium of the Louvre – after all, that seemed to be one of her favorite locations in Paris. He had even considered taking her up to Sacre Coeur in Montmartre and asking her there. None of the locations were right though. None of them felt right.

He looked over at her sleeping in the bed of the rented room and smiled. His finger ran over the diamond ring. It was modest – he knew that he certainly could have afforded something bigger, more elaborate, but this ring…it was Pam. It was small and he was certain that she would love it – if he could ever bring himself to give it to her.

His finger jostled the ring from its secure position and it suddenly skirted onto the floor, skipping along the hardwood floors. Jim quickly dove for it, covering it with both of his hands before it fell into a crack or into a far corner where he wouldn’t be able to reach it. Unfortunately, the sudden thud of his body against the floor and the tinkle of the jewelry against the floor woke Pam. She sat up abruptly and looked down to see Jim on the floor, looking like he was in the middle of a game of baseball and had just slid into home base.

“Jim?” she asked sleepily. “What are you doing?” His mind raced, not here, not here, not now…

“Sorry, I just dropped a couple of Euros…” he said quickly.

“Oh…” she said nodding and falling back into the pillows. “Well, come to bed soon, okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be in there with you in just a second,” he said as his hand curled around the ring. He heard a yawn come from the bed and soon her breathing returned to the slow pace that it always was when she was in a deep sleep.

He quickly tucked the ring back into its box and slipped it back into the silk pocket of his suitcase.

“Soon,” he told himself.

June 14, 2007

They had arrived back in New York City around six o’clock the previous evening. Pam had no desire for food; she had no desire for anything but to sleep. The entire flight back she had been wide awake, now it was – as far as she was concerned – midnight. She and Jim took a taxi back to her apartment, where she let herself out, grabbed her luggage and went to her apartment alone. She and Jim had decided to sleep alone in their respective apartments that night. After a week and half, they both thought it might be nice to sleep in their own beds alone for the night.

Jim tossed and turned in his bed that night. Usually he didn’t suffer from jet lag on the return – he wasn’t really certain if this could even be considered jet lag. The diamond ring sat next to his bed on the nightstand. Every hour he would wake up with a start, grope around the empty space next to him where Pam should be, then he would look at the ring, every once in a while a ray of light from the street or the moon would bounce off of the silvery gold or sparkling rock. He had to ask her soon. He would drive himself crazy if he didn’t.

Pam had a hard time sleeping that night too. Maybe it was the different noise the ambulances and police cars made as they drove past her building, maybe it was the different feeling that hovered in the air, but deep down inside, she knew it was Jim. He wasn’t there with her, his protective arm wrapped around her waist and his warm breath softly pulsating against the back of her neck. At four in the morning she woke up for good, the streets were still dark and the city was quiet. She rifled through the things that she still hadn’t unpacked and pulled out her sketchbook and started to flip through the pages. Jim had the actual photos, she had the drawings. She pulled out a large sheet of paper that was an image of the atrium of the Louvre. She admired the strokes of charcoal on the page, she had perfectly captured the sun radiating off of the glass of the pyramid and the way the large crowds of people filed around the area in a harmonious balance. She pinned the piece of paper to her art easel. She was wary about going over charcoals with watercolors, but she had done it the other way around before with good results. She mixed together the paints on a piece of cardboard and filled a couple cups with water and sat down to paint over the picture.

**

He sat as his desk at work. He felt horribly sleep deprived and he started to realize that he had been looking at the diamond ring for far too long. There was a soft knock on his door and his eyes immediately shot up, and he quickly closed the ring box.

“How was Paris?” Ryan asked as he walked through the door. “Better than last time, I hope.”

“Much better than last time,” Jim replied with a sleepy smile.

“Oh man, you look tired,” Ryan said, “what time did you get back?”

“We got back at six, I just couldn’t sleep at all last night,” Jim said rubbing his eyes with his thumb and pointer finger.

“Why not?” Ryan joked, “Trying to figure out how you’re going to ask her to marry you?” Jim shot him a glare that seemed to read, how did you know?

“What?”

“I was kidding…” Ryan said slowly. “I…are you thinking about it?” Jim nodded slowly.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Really? Seriously? Jim Halpert is actually thinking about marrying someone again?” Ryan asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Where’s the ring,” Ryan said with a chuckle, “I’ll only believe it if you let me see the ring.” Jim slowly pulled his hand out from under his desk, and his fingers uncurled from the velvet box that lay in his hand. “Holy fuck, you have a ring.”

“I’ve had a ring for a long time,” Jim said with a sigh.

“Can I…?” Ryan asked picking up the box from Jim’s hand.

“Go for it,” Jim replied with a shrug. “I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever even give it to her.” Ryan opened up the box.

“Come on, man,” Ryan said holding up the ring on the top of his thumb. “Seriously? With the income that you make you get her this?”

“What’s wrong with it?” Jim asked incredulously.

“It’s tiny that’s what it is,” Ryan replied.

“So?”

“What is it, like, a quarter carat?” he asked, twisting the band around his finger.

“It’s a carat and a half,” Jim replied with an annoyed look on his face. “Give it back.” He started to lurch over his desk for the ring when Michael walked into the office.

“Ooh? Fight?” Michael asked, immediately pumping his fists up in front of him. “Who’s fighting who? Huh? Oh, I don’t care!” He playfully punched Ryan in the arm just as Ryan handed the ring back to Jim. The ring slipped through Jim’s fingers and fell onto the carpet.

“Thanks,” Jim said annoyed. Michael immediately dove to the carpet to see what was dropped, when his head popped back up above the desk, he had a look of shock on his face.

“Who’s getting married?” he asked.

“No one, yet,” Jim replied quietly, holding out his hand expectantly for the ring.

“Are you?” Michael asked looking at Jim in shock.

“Not yet,” Jim replied grabbing the ring from Michael and placing it into its box.

“You’re getting married to Pam?” he asked with a huge grin on his face.

“How am I supposed to marry Pam when she doesn’t even know about it yet?” he asked as he stuffed the box into the inside pocket of his jacket.

“Why didn’t you ask her in Paris?” Ryan asked.

“Because it didn’t…it didn’t feel right,” Jim replied. “Sure, there were plenty of great places and great moments, but they just weren’t…right.” Michael nodded, hanging onto his every word.

“So when are you going to ask her?” Michael asked. Jim shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “If I don’t do it soon though, I think I might go crazy.”

**

Pam picked up her phone as soon as it rang.

“Perfect timing,” she said with a smile as she answered it.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I just finished working,” she said.

“What a coincidence! Me too!”

“Wonderful!”

“So did everyone at work pester you for all of the details from Paris?”

“No, not really, they were pretty cool about it,” she replied. “Though Kelly did ask me if I had seen any famous French celebrities and what I bought from the Champs-Elysée.”

“Oh shoot, we didn’t go there!”

“I think that I’m okay with that,” she said with a grin as she stepped outside into the steamy June air.

“I miss you.”

“You just saw me last night,” she said with a giggle.

“I miss you.”

“I miss you too, actually.”

“Hey, I have a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Will you meet me at Strawberry Fields as soon as you can?”

“Uh…sure,” she looked around her, she would need to turn the other direction to get to the subway. “Are you there already?”

“No, I’m just walking out of work, but I should be around that area pretty shortly.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll meet you there. Hopefully the subway isn’t too packed,” she said as she switched directions.

“Okay, great, I’ll see you there in a little while.”

**

She had a flutter in her chest when she saw him sitting on a bench, looking in the other direction. It was like she hadn’t seen him in weeks. He was so handsome, so professional and most of all so…Jim. She walked a little faster – he still hadn’t noticed her, his attention seemed to be aimed towards a father, his small daughter and a dog off in the distance.

“Hey,” she said, stopping just short of his knees. He jumped and his face towards her. “Sorry, the subway was packed.”

“Hi, it’s fine, sit,” he said, moving to the side slightly to make a little more room for her.

“I haven’t been here in a while,” she said as she looked around.

“Yeah, I think the last time that I was here was that day that I asked you do that dinner gala,” he said.

“Wow…that was like, what? A year ago?” she asked, thinking back to the sunny spring day that the two of them had sat on this very park bench.

“Something like that, yeah,” he replied with a slow nod as he looked around some more. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but he seemed more nervous than usual, more on edge about something. She secretly hoped that he hadn’t suddenly heard from Karen again – but she was almost positive that everything with that situation was over and done with. She actually vaguely remembered him saying something about her and her husband moving back to London.

“So how was work today?” she asked, she hated to be the one to make small talk, but it didn’t really seem like he was actually in the talking mood right now. There was obviously something on his mind; maybe she’d be able to coax it out of him.

“It was good,” he replied quickly.

“Did you miss a lot while we were gone?” she asked.

“No, no, Michael and Ryan are pretty good at covering for me when I’m out of town,” he replied, his hand slipping into his jacket to make sure the ring box was still in the pocket.

“Are you hot?” she asked, suddenly realizing that she was hot in her short sleeved t-shirt, she couldn’t even imagine how hot he must be in his business suit.

“Eh,” he shrugged, she sighed; she wanted to talk to him. Why was he acting so weird?

“So…Jim,” she said as she looked into his eyes, “I really missed you last night.”

“You did?” he asked, the words seemed to suddenly relax him somehow.

“Yeah,” she replied, “I tossed and turned until like, four in the morning and I just couldn’t sleep so I woke up and painted.”

“Are you tired?” he asked.

“Kind of,” she replied with a simple shrug. The two sat in a brief silence until Jim pulled something from his pocket that she couldn’t quite see and he hunched over, placing his elbows on his knees and hands between his legs.

“Listen, Pam,” he said, and her heart froze. She had never received the “listen…” talk in the past, but she had definitely doled it out to Roy when they broke up and she had certainly seen it more times that she could remember on television and movies. He turned to her slightly, “I have a couple of questions for you.”

“Questions?” she squeaked.

“Yeah,” he said, trying to mentally build his confidence. Had he been this nervous in the past when he proposed to Karen? He didn’t think that he had been…then on the other hand, it was kind of a spur of the moment sort of event that just came up out of nowhere.

“Good or bad?” she asked, unsure if she could handle a break-up right now.

“Good,” he replied. “I…I hope.” She took a breath of relief, and her heart started to return to normal a bit.

“Go ahead,” she said with a nod.

“Well,” he began, “I didn’t sleep very well last night either and…well, I think it was because you weren’t there. I kept thinking about Paris and everything that we’ve been through over the past year or so. I kind of came to this realization around six this morning that I want to be around you more often. The days that we go without seeing one another…I hate it, I really hate it. Every day that I don’t see you, when I get home from work the only thing that I want to do is call you and talk to you or see you or just…be with you.”

“Really?” she asked, a smile lighting up her face.

“Yes, really,” he replied with a quick nod. “So uh…”

Suddenly, Pam’s phone rang in her purse against her leg. Her eyes shot back to Jim’s and she fished through her purse for the phone. She was just going to let it ring, but when she saw the number she jumped up.

“Jim, can you just hang on one second?” she asked. “I really should…I need to take this.” He half-nodded as she quickly walked away from him and answered the phone.

He sat with the velvet box in his hands. He flipped open the top and looked at the ring again. This was the place, he was sure of it, he wasn’t really sure if it was the right moment though, maybe he should start with a different tactic. There was something else that he had been meaning to ask her anyway. He nervously tapped his feet and slipped the box into the pocket of his pants as he watched Pam hang up the phone. When she turned back around to face him, there was a huge smile on her face and she quickly skipped back to the bench.

“You’re never going to believe…” she said quickly as she sat down and grabbed onto his hand. “That was the publishing company that I interviewed with before we went to Paris.”

“I want…” Jim started, but Pam wouldn’t let him finish.

“That was the head of the company,” Pam said quickly, “they loved me, they loved my art, they’re going to let me illustrate for them part-time.”

“What?” Jim asked, suddenly catching what Pam was saying.

“I get to be an illustrator,” she replied happily, a huge smile on her face. “It’s just part-time to start, so I’ll still work at the restaurant, but I can become full time if they really like me.”

“Are you serious?” he asked and she nodded. “Pam! That’s so great!” She immediately threw her arms around his torso and hugged him tightly.

“Okay, okay, but anyway, back to what you were saying,” she said as she pulled away from him and her hand trailed down to his leg.

“Oh right…” he said, just as he realized, that her hand had rest on top of the box in his pocket.

“What do you have in your pocket?” she asked, her face changing to a curious smile.

“Oh uh…” his mind raced. Not now! Not now! Now is not the time! He really was starting to feel hot now. It’s candy! It’s keys to a new car! Oh god, oh god, oh god…

“Jim?” she asked.

“It’s…” he practically sighed in defeat as he pulled the ring box from his pocket, fisted in his hand so she couldn’t see the black velvet. “I don’t know how to do this. Not with you and I have no idea why. I don’t know how I did it before. I’ve had this for the past month…”

“What?” she asked, the smile had disappeared from her face, her own thoughts racing again.

“I wanted to do this in Paris, I wanted to do it on the plane ride there, and I wanted to do it before we left…” he said with a heavy sigh.

“Jim…” she said, her eyes looking deep into his. “You’re going to have to be a little more clear, here.”

“Close your eyes,” he said. Her eyes moved back and forth quickly and she slowly closed her eyes. “Now hold out your hand.” She held her hand in front of her as he opened up the box and set it softly against the skin of her palm. “Okay.”

She slowly opened her eyes and she nearly dropped the box into her lap when she realized what she was holding. Her eyes immediately traveled to his.

“You want to…” she stammered, “you want to marry me?”

“Among many other things, yes,” he said with a weak smile. She took the ring from the box and admired it in the sunlight that surrounded them and the smile that she had held on her face before immediately started to return.

“Jim…” she said as she twirled the ring on her index finger, admiring it. “I don’t even know why you ask me these things.” She slipped the ring onto her finger. “I would have married you a year ago if you had asked me to.” A happy, reassured smile spread across Jim’s face and he pulled her into his arms faster than he could even think. His chin crushed against her shoulder and he held her tight against his body so she didn’t see the few tears that he had shed from joy.

“Wait wait,” Pam said as she quickly pulled away, flicking a couple of tears from her eyelids.

“What?” Jim asked, sounding a bit nervous.

“You said that you had a couple of questions,” she replied. “What else did you want to ask me?”

“Oh,” he said as he searched his mind. What was the other thing he was going to ask her? “I uh…” she nodded and smiled.

“That’s okay,” she said, “I think that I just forgot everything that happened to me today.” She laid her hand flat on her leg and admired the ring that he had picked out for her.

“So you really will marry me?” he asked, as he admired the way the ring caught the light, the way the sun bounced off of her reddish brown curls and the way that there seemed to be this light inside of her that had suddenly exploded.

“Are you kidding?” she asked as she looked back up with a grin on her face, just like the grin he had seen every day in Paris. “I will absolutely marry you.” She linked her hands behind his neck and pulled him close to her face. “And I will love you, and I will…” she thought, “I will love you some more.” She giggled and pressed her lips against his.

“I love you,” he whispered against her lips as he closed his eyes.

“I love you too,” she whispered back before she pressed her lips against his once more.

June 20, 2007

They barely spent another day apart in the week that followed the proposal. It was the Tuesday night that they spent apart. Jim had an early meeting with the people of the New York City Public Transportation system and Pam had to be at the publishing company first thing in the morning. The two of them had both slept uncomfortably that Tuesday night. When Wednesday morning rolled around and Jim felt like he hadn’t slept any more than three hours, he knew that he had to ask her once and for all. He had skirted around the question in the past week, but he couldn’t take another lonely night without her.

She felt the same way.

**

He invited her over that evening. She knew she was spending the night without him even saying so. She packed a clean pair of underwear in her purse after stopping by her apartment, picked up the “just because” gift that she had framed for him and stopped by a small grocery store on the on the way.

She arrived at his apartment shortly after seven, two grocery bags in her arms, purse slung over her shoulder, and something large and wrapped in paper under her arm.

“Jesus, Beesly!” Jim exclaimed as he opened the door for her.

“Thanks,” she said with a gracious smile as she walked past him and made her way straight into his apartment.

“What is all of this?” he asked as she set everything down on the kitchen counter.

“Dinner,” she replied pointing to the bags, “and a present for you.”

“Why did you get me a present?” he asked.

“Because,” she replied. “And it’s not so much that I got you a present, it’s more that I made you a present.”

“Ah, of course,” he said with a quick nod. “So what is for dinner?”

“I am going to make eggplant parmesan,” she said with a grin.

“Yeah right,” he said.

“What?”

“You can’t cook,” he said shaking his head.

“Excuse me?” she asked incredulously. “I believe I made you cupcakes on your birthday. I believe that I work in a restaurant. Helloooo!” He laughed.

“I have never once seen you make dinner,” he said as he crossed his arms.

“I suddenly don’t know if you deserve this present,” she said as she brought the wrapped package to her feet and propped it against the cupboards.

“Oh come on,” he said, “really, when was the last time that you made dinner for yourself?” She thought.

“I don’t remember,” she replied with a soft snicker.

“See?” he asked.

“Come on, I can cook,” she said quickly. “I used to cook all the time back in the day.”

“I’ll believe you when I taste it,” he said.

“And you will, and you will love it,” she said. “And me.”

“I already love you,” he said as he kissed her on the nose. “Can I have the present?”

“Maybe,” she said.

“Can I?” he asked again.

“Go ahead,” she replied as she picked it up off of the floor and handed it to him. He brought it around the counter to the table as she started to prepare their dinner.

“So it feels like a picture frame,” he said as he ran his hands along the edges.

“Maybe it is,” she said with a quick shrug.

“Well, I do have it on good authority that you enjoy giving artwork as gifts,” he said.

“It is a well known fact,” she said. He smiled and tore through the paper that covered the painting. When he flipped the frame over, he realized that she had painted in watercolors over the charcoal sketch she had done of the Louvre. It was an interesting painting. The lines of the charcoal had bled a little, which at first he thought was unfortunate. She had done such a good job of making the lines of the building and the pyramid even, concise. In charcoals, it had almost looked like a black and white picture. Now with the watercolors over it, the lines were a little more muddled, it was softer and more fluid. The watercolors did anything but ruin the picture; they made it more alive, more…Pam in a sense.

“So why did you give this to me?” he asked. “I mean, the Louvre is kind of your thing.” She smiled.

“I know,” she said. “It’s just…when I sat there with you on that day…it was one of the best moments I’ve ever shared with anyone.” She shrugged. “And I thought you should have it.” She brushed her hands against her pants. “Anyway, it will be mine again soon enough what with marrying and all.”

He looked up at her and realized that he couldn't wait to ask her his question.

“Live with me,” he said very suddenly.

“What?” she asked, dropping the knife she was using onto the cutting board, startled by his statement.

“Live with me,” he repeated. “I want you to live here with me.”

“You do?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “I hate it when you don’t spend the night with me, I hate sleeping without you. I can’t…you can’t…I need you here.” Her eyes widened a bit and she completely forgot what she was doing.

“Really?” she asked, feeling a similar sensation running through her body that she had felt the previous week in Central Park.

“Absolutely,” he replied.

“I…” and she didn’t know what else to say, she was rendered completely speechless. “Yes. Of course I will.”

**

She lay in his arms, in the dark room of his – their(?) – townhouse. He was asleep, he had fallen asleep at least fifteen, maybe thirty minutes ago. She stared at the sketch painting that she had made for him of the Louvre.

If anyone had told her two years ago that she wouldn’t have married Roy she would have called them just a little bit crazy. If someone had told her that she would meet and fall in love with a wealthy – not to mention devastatingly attractive – advertiser she would have called them insane. If she had told herself that she would go back to college, earn a degree in art, work at a publishing company as an illustrator and find herself engaged to the wealthy and devastatingly attractive advertiser? She would have chalked it up to an unattainable dream.

Yet here she was. She had left her relationship with Roy, maybe a little later than she should have, but she did it. She moved to New York City, she met Jim, she went back to school, she got the degree, and she had even gone to Paris. She rolled onto her other side to face Jim.

“Hey,” she whispered into his face. “Jim…” his eyes slowly opened and he yawned.

“What?” he asked, smiling at her.

“Can we get married in Central Park?” she asked.

“When?” he asked.

“Maybe September or October,” she replied. He pulled her close against him and kissed her softly.

“September or October it is,” he said.

She was more decisive now too. She learned that she shouldn’t hide in the house, waiting on the men in her life. She could express herself in the way that she wanted to and there were people who really believed in her and wanted her to do everything that made her happy.

She snuggled into Jim’s warm chest and rested her ear against his neck. She could hear his pulse beating slowly and she sighed happily, rustling the small hairs up along his collarbone.

“Thank you,” she whispered before she finally fell asleep.